Stormchasers
by sammie28
Summary: AU Challenge. Squabbling stormchasers work to put stormtracking devices inside tornadoes. Twister AU KateGibbs.
1. Chapter 1

**Stormchasers**  
by Sammie

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. If I did, would Kate be dead? bares fangs Do not own "Twister", whose storyline, lines, and characters I have borrowed liberally. Don't own Chris Larabee, Vin, the Travises, JD, and that awful three-legged dog joke... A few brief, recontextualized takes on different episodes.

Rating: K+, T max.  
Spoilers: no specific ones.

Summary: The AU challenge. Squabbling stormchasers work to put storm-tracking devices inside tornadoes. ("Twister" AU) Kate/Gibbs.

A/N: for my AU challenge, issued on the gibbskateff/gibbskatefic lists:

_Take the team out of NCIS and put them in another world. If you like "House, M.D." or "ER", make our team all doctors. If you like "CSI", make them all CSIs ( ;-) ). If you like "West Wing", make Gibbs the president. (Scary.) __You can also put them in a different time period. (Any who have seen "JAG", I'm talking about an episode like "Each of us Angels" or "Mutiny"). _

_The catch is this: THIS IS NOT A CROSSOVER. You can make references to a related fandom (e.g. to Dr. House if you've made them all doctors), and have one appear for just a tiny bit, but the idea is the "NCIS" people in a different world._

In light of that, please remember that while most of the characters' stories remain in tact, not all of the details do. E.g., Jen Shepard and Ziva, Jen and Ducky do not know each other; Viv Blackadder never left. I've played liberally with the storylines (although maybe not as liberally as tptb do).

Kate's required TIS for the Secret Service makes her a federal agent longer than Tony, although she is younger than he in age, so that's translated into this story, too. (Even Viv may have been a federal agent longer than Tony, since she was FBI when the USS Cole was bombed.) Tony, of course, seems to have been the longest with Gibbs.

Kate's engagement was mentioned in her CBS profile. I came up with the rest of the storyline. It's time Gibbs took care of Kate instead of vice versa, as in most of my stories (though not all).

The legal block (Gibbs' sponsoring a team's TOTO project while trying to work for the NSSL) I totally made up.

* * *

THE "TWISTER" AU

First, this is an alternate universe. No NCIS. Everyone is part of a stormchasing team that Gibbs used to head up before he quit. Now Tony's the boss. (Sound familiar:-) )

I use tornado-chasing vocabulary, and here is where the movie "Twister" succeeds - (1) by showing visually everything the characters say, it's easy to follow, but this story less so. (2) They include the tornado-ignorant girlfriend to give an excuse to explain things.

What you need to know:  
1. In the 1980s, researchers tried to put TOTO, 55-gallon drum designed to take measurements of the storms, into tornadoes. When "Twister" filmed (1995), they tried again but still without success. In "Twister", the team's TOTO is named "Dorothy" (get it?), and they do succeed.

The machine is put in the path of a tornado. She opens up, and lots of the little sensor balls go up into the funnel and radio back info on internal structure, wind speed, flow, asymmetry. (That's from the script.) The purpose was to design an advance warning system (in the movie, 15 minutes over 3 minutes).

In my story, Kate and Gibbs have worked to produce a better, more durable model, which includes relocating the machine's center of mass into the bottom of it (making it bottom heavy and thus more likely to stand upright). But all that's explained.

2. Tornadoes are ranked by the Fujita scale, by how much each destroys. F0 is the weakest; F5 is the strongest but also VERY rare.

3. Basic process: get into a car and chase the tornado. Each team is a "Vortex" team. There is a navigator who knows all the roads, carries tons of maps, and gives directions over the radio (and a driving stormchaser who drives the navigator about); a few cars which carry all the equipment. The equipment is for the NSSL (National Severe Storms Lab) to beam information about tornadoes to the teams so that they can track it and photograph it. Most teams send up weather balloons and take photos and videos of the tornadoes (in real life, the TOTOs have not succeeded the way they were intended).

They get a call from the NSSL, and they drive towards the tornado. Teams with the equipment hang a little farther back to receive information; the ones releasing the weather balloons and taking the photos drive closer.

* * *

NATIONAL SEVERE STORMS LAB (NSSL)  
NORMAN, OK 

The radio blared in the background: "At noon today, clear for now across the state. Ninety percent chance of thunderstorms this afternoon. Dryline high over central Oklahoma."

"Look at these gate velocities, Cassie." The blonde leaned over towards her coworker, showing her the reports, accidentally knocking over her nameplate. She muttered a small curse, then picked it up, dumping the 'Paula Cassidy' nametag upside down on her desk. She shook her head, pushing a pen over her ear. "That doesn't look good."

"You mean, it looks very good," Cassie grinned, sipping her coffee. "Hey, what happened to that meeting with Jen? I mean, now, Director Shepard?"

"She was here this morning, then left in a hurry. Postponed the meeting until tomorrow."

"Day 1 as the new NSSL director and she's not here?"

"Heard she had some personal business." Paula shrugged.

* * *

"Are you sure she's out here?" 

"They'll be at the office, not at the lab. Just this morning you said that the caps were spiking at forty thousand."

"Well, yeah."

"Days like this, the team would have to be in the field. If we're lucky, at the office to finish up some last minute things." Gibbs paused, then looked over at his passenger, smiling a little as he drove. "It'll be fine, Jen. We'll just go in, get Kate to sign the papers, and we'll be gone."

"How do you know she'll sign? She didn't sign the papers you sent before," the redhead pointed out.

"She'll sign, Jen. She's not the petulant type."

"Considering you were the team boss, how come you can't sign the papers yourself?"

"We put Kate in charge of the accounts and the grants applications," Gibbs replied.

"One person?"

"Kate can make a dollar stretch farther than most of us," Gibbs replied, continuing to keep his eyes on the road. "She grew up crimping and shaving corners. That's why she's in charge of all the finances."

* * *

"What did you get us? What did you get us?" Abby exclaimed, hopping up and down as the team gathered in the cramped office of their new boss. She paused, then asked seriously, "Did you go to the awesome bar I told you about while you were in Texas?"

"I wanted to," Tony lamented. "But there was no time."

"Did you run into the Larabee boys?" Ziva chuckled.

Tony laughed. "Oh, yeah. They took me out to breakfast this morning before I drove back up here."

"And how late was this breakfast?" McGee asked, looking at his watch. "It's past noon here!"

"Hey! It takes a long time to drive up here," Tony huffed. "If you had been driving - "

"I drive fine! Gibbs chose me to drive Abby, excuse me. I - "

"Bet Vin's happy about being back in Texas," Kate cut into their squabbling with a chuckle as she stuck more papers into the portable filing cabinet. She looked over the grant application, licking a finger and flipping through the pages, then shoved it into a file in the front.

"He's in heaven," Tony joked. "You guys go out this morning?"

"They did," Ziva replied. "And only after McGee fixed the Doppler."

"You didn't go?" Tony frowned.

"I had to wait with the van," she replied. "Timing belt snapped last night."

Tony winced. "Did Fornell ... ?"

"No, they didn't get anything to fly, but neither did we."

Tony shook his head, still relieved their friendly rival hadn't beaten them to the punch, and turned his attention to his large bag. "Now...from my trip to Texas! For Abby," he grinned as he pulled out a glass box lamp.

"Thanks, Tony!" she said with her usual enthusiasm.

"You got her a glass box?" Kate shook her head, unimpressed but grinning.

"And you say that you know more about women than McGee," Ziva snorted in laughter. She and Viv Blackadder exchanged high-fives when Tony scowled.

"Plug it in and turn it on," Tony told Abby.

She obliged, setting it on the small table in the room and plugging it in, then turning it on. Inside, a tiny little funnel began to appear, spinning inside as the light was on. Abby's face lit up. "Wow!" she shouted. "Wow! A tornado lamp! Tony, this is awesome!" she shouted, jumping across the room straight into his arms in a bear hug.

"That is a pretty good present," Viv admitted, laughing.

"For Zeeeeeeeva," Tony intoned, pulling out a small cooler. He grinned happily as she opened up the box up.

She took out the package. "You got me beef?" she exclaimed.

"Don't worry, it's kosher beef! I got kosher Texas beef brisket from a Jewish kosher deli."

"You got me beef," she repeated incredulously.

"It's kosher!" he pointed out for the third time.

"We are insane to continue to work for him, yes?" Ziva muttered, rolling her eyes at her present.

"Yes," came the chorus. Tony scowled.

"Why do we?"

"Because we don't want to be corporate sellouts."

"We got rejected by other teams."

"We have no money to go elsewhere."

"I become the life of the party when I tell Tony stories."

"Funny," Tony made faces at them. "Everyone's a freakin' comedian."

"Aw, you know we love you," Abby replied, hugging him again.

"For Vivienne," Tony purred out the name. "That's a beautiful name. Although that last comment was not."

"Just hand it over, smartie pants," Viv chuckled, taking the box. She opened it up. "You got me pink cowboy boots."

"At least I can eat mine and remove all evidence of it," Ziva joked.

"They're...PINK," Viv repeated, still staring at the boots in the box.

"Matches your red hair," Tony replied as he fished into his bag for another package. "And for McGeeeee."

McGee tore eagerly into the slim package, then frowned when he saw it. "'Texas Country Stars' Greatest Hits'?"

"Well, I was in Texas," Tony pointed out.

Viv waved at him from behind Kate. 'Did you get her present?' she mouthed, getting an affirmative nod in return.

"And last but not least, for Kate," Tony grinned, his expression softening a little as he handed her a slim box.

She smiled, but for some reason the others seemed more eager to see her reaction than to see what she had gotten. They watched her with knowing grins, and she frowned, slightly amused but puzzled. She was about to take off the paper when the door opened.

There was a long, stunned silence, Kate's gift entirely forgotten.

"Boss!" McGee exclaimed, the first of them to recover. "I mean, Gibbs. Sir."

* * *

"We're gearing up for another bad season, folks," the weatherman intoned over the television. "Make sure you're up to date on your escape plans and your storm cellars, and make sure to continue to watch NCIS-4 for continued coverage."

- x - x - x - x - x -

Viv pretended to look busy, looking over the large Oklahoma map with Ziva and Abby peering over her shoulder. "I thought Kate was going to flip when Gibbs showed up," Abby whispered.

"Caitlin's too professional for that," Ziva murmured. "Ex-boyfriend or not."

"Still," Viv muttered. "I wouldn't want unexpected visits from ex-es. 'Specially ones that bring their new girlfriends along. Think Kate saw Red over there in his new truck?"

Ziva snickered, then pushed down on the crease in the map. "There's a gigantic fold through Tulsa!"

"Somebody got into the stash and didn't roll the maps," Viv replied. Ziva narrowed her eyes, carefully straightening out the crease.

Abby slurped up the last drops of her Caff-Pow!. "Tony said Gibbs asked to be let out of his financial commitment to TOTO," she said, sounding hurt. "As a requirement for him signing permanently for a tracking position at the NSSL."

Ziva shook her head. "He'll never last behind a desk, even tracking storms," she replied. "One look at TOTO and he'll be on the road with us."

"Twenty says he goes home with Red," Viv disagreed with a grin. "He keeps telling us he's not back."

Ziva grabbed Viv's hand in a handshake. "You're in!"

"'On', Ziva. 'On'."

- x - x - x - x - x -

"You've got to see it," Tony said eagerly, looking at his former boss and mentor sideways as he led him outside. "We didn't think we could get it done this year."

"Have to say I'm surprised, too," Gibbs murmured, but he couldn't help the tiny, pleased grin that crossed his face.

Tony stopped in front of his truck, then looked at his boss, and then said with deadpan humor, "You might want to cover your eyes, boss." He grinned. "The brilliance might blind you."

"DiNozzo!"

Tony yanked the tarp off the machine, watching Gibbs' reaction. To the observing stranger, there was no reaction, but his protege was easily able to read his obvious astonishment and delight as the older man slowly shook his head. Tony beamed, his grin threatening to split his face. "There it is."

Gibbs shook his head again, just slightly, as if in disbelief. The corners of his mouth turned up. "Yeah, there it is." He reached up a hand to touch the big, cylindrical machine.

"Kate's been cutting corners and scrimping money for the last year to finish it off," Tony put in. "You know Abby and McGee. They use what they got. It's brilliant."

"Sure." Gibbs was not immune to Tony's enthusiasm.

The older man hopped up onto the truck bed, popping the top and lifting out one of the round sensors. His protege and the new boss grinned up at him. "Great, huh?"

"Yeah," Gibbs murmured, his smile widening, showing his delight. After a moment, he popped the ball back in and waved at the metal contraption holding TOTO on the truck. "What's all this?"

"Relocating its center of mass - that idea you and Kate came up with - it was a great idea, but we had to lock TOTO up better. Kate got McGee and Abby to design something to make releasing TOTO easier but keep it stable in the truck in the meantime."

Gibbs fingered the metal contraption. "How does it work?"

"We load TOTO into the truck moorings, which are lashed onto the truck. Lining up the truck moorings takes almost twenty minutes, but once the moorings are in, they're in."

"You don't need to remove the moorings every time you load TOTO."

"Right. We've got TOTO 1 here, one in the van, one in the mini RV. We can interchange them in less than five minutes; just roll them over to the truck, lock them into the truck moorings." Tony waved at the release strap. "Go ahead, tug on it."

Gibbs yanked, and suddenly TOTO 1 rolled free from its stand.

"One tug on the release strap sends the machine rolling out of the moorings," Tony explained. "We can get it on the ground in three. We even tried it single-handedly; one person in the bed can lower it to the ground in record time."

"And if the wind knocks it over, the center of mass gets it to right itself," Gibbs murmured. He gave TOTO 1 a good push. It teetered back and forth, slowly righting itself.

Tony nodded. "It was a genius idea, boss," he said quietly. "It was a really good idea you and Kate had."

"How long does it take to activate?"

"McGee tied all the wiring together. That leaves us three switches here, here, and here. Cuts down time that way, too."

Gibbs shook his head, smiling. "Getting closer than ever."

Tony grinned proudly.

Gibbs nodded silently, then asked, "Were you in budget?" Tony shifted a little uncomfortably, and Gibbs frowned. "How bad was it?"

"We were a couple thousand in the hole," Tony muttered. "TOTO turned out heavier than anybody anticipated, and we had to fix that. Then the Doppler finally failed on us. We had to get it fixed; no way around it."

"We needed TOTO heavier," Gibbs frowned. "The Harding prototype and the ones after were too light to reach the core."

"Right, but we still needed to hit a fixed target weight."

Gibbs frowned. "We budgeted almost a hundred grand. How much were we over?"

Tony fidgeted. "Almost six thousand."

"Six thousand," he repeated, staring at the younger man. "Six thousand. How'd you cover it?"

Tony looked nervously at his feet, then looked around, anywhere but at his boss.

"DiNozzo."

"Well, we sold the station wagon," Tony began. "It was old, and we really didn't need it after - " he stopped.

"After I left," Gibbs replied.

Tony shrugged, almost apologetically. "It's easier this way - two of us in each car," he continued. "And we had to pay a lot less car insurance. With one less car that freed up half a thousand."

"DiNozzo," Gibbs said quietly. "That car wouldn't have gotten more then three thousand."

Tony tried to look nonchalant. "They were kind enough to give us a little more," he said carefully. "Four."

"Not six thousand," Gibbs replied, raising an eyebrow. "Where'd the other cash come from?"

Tony looked at the entrance, as if looking for somebody, then admitted, "Kate covered it," he said quietly. "She came in one day with a check for two thousand."

"Where'd she get that money?"

"Uh...not sure?" Tony tried.

"Where'd. Kate. Get. Cash."

"She sold stuff," Tony blurted nervously, still watching for Kate at the doorway, and Gibbs knew that she would yell if she found out Tony had told. "I don't know how much of her stuff she sold; we only know of some. And don't tell her I told you. She kept it secret for a long time, until Ziva noticed some things missing in her apartment."

Gibbs sighed, shaking his head. He shoved TOTO back into its moorings, hearing the distinctive click as it locked into place. He jumped down from the truck, his knee creaking a little. "You should have come to me."

Tony paused now, and his expression changed. He straightened, and for a moment Gibbs was briefly taken aback by the commanding stance the younger man took. "This was Kate's baby as much as yours," he disagreed flat out, quietly but firmly shooting down Gibbs' last comment. "She was as much involved with getting it off the ground as you were. It was her decision, and as her boss, I respected that."

The two men stood unmoving, Tony refusing to concede the point. They were still face to face when the officer door popped open and Kate came out, stretching her arms into a jacket as she walked briskly towards the truck. She looked up then, seeing the two men there. She paused. "You saw TOTO," she said, a proud, delighted smile crossing her face.

"Yeah," Gibbs nodded, a tiny smile on his face as his eyes drifted from Kate to TOTO and then back. "Yeah, I did."

"Boss!" McGee called out the front door. "Come take a look at this," he shouted, and Tony took off.

The two of them stood in awkward silence for a moment, then Kate spoke up. "Glad you caught up to us," she began. "We were about to head into the field when you came."

"Yeah." Gibbs paused.

She opened up the passenger's side door to the truck and began to clean out old coffee cups, wrappers, and the like from the inside. "We're getting another big series of storms," she began. "More active then normal, though nothing like '96." She paused, then laughed. "Not that I'd need to tell you that, I guess."

She handed him a grocery bag full of trash, then disappeared deeper into the cab, leaning over the seat into the backseat to pick up more stuff.

"Kate, I came about TOTO."

"Still glad you didn't sign out of your commitment?" came Kate's muffled voice from inside the truck. "When the grant comes in, TOTO will be worth more than your original investment. In more than just money."

"You know I didn't sign in for the money," Gibbs replied.

Kate shrugged in acknowledgment, dumping some more trash into the grocery bag. She took it from him, knotted the top, and left it on the car hood to throw out later.

"I came for you to sign the financial papers releasing me from responsibility for TOTO."

"What's the rush?" came her voice, muffled as she dug through her own bookbag. "You sunk this much time and energy in."

"My new job at the NSSL - I can't be showing 'preference' to any particular Vortex team."

"It's hardly about showing preference any more but seeing you get some credit for it," Kate replied, emerging with a pristine stack of large envelopes, stamped and ready to go.

"You know I didn't sign in for the money," he repeated.

Kate just shrugged, turned, and headed towards the mailbox.

"I still need to be signed out. I want you to sign the papers I sent you," Gibbs called out, striding after her on the gravel driveway outside the office.

"I didn't get any papers," Kate replied, whirling around to stand toe to toe with her former boss.

"I sent them last week!" Gibbs said impatiently, crossing his arms.

"I didn't get any papers," Kate repeated, her voice rising.

"How could you not have gotten them? They take two days to get out here."

"I don't know," she retorted. "How did you manage to get in the mail the honey dust Tony meant for somebody else?" Point made, she continued down the long gravel parking lot.

"I brought a copy. So sign them now."

"What's the rush?" she muttered. "You know the business deal will take awhile to go through anyhow."

"It's been four months since I quit," Gibbs growled. "I'm doing research and I want to settle into my job."

Kate stopped a minute, trying to suppress her laughter, then shook her head. "I never figured you for the desk type," she said, her voice full of mirth.

He sighed. "Kate, I'm older. I can't chase storms my entire life."

"Yeah, but a desk job?" Kate laughed. "And one advising the local media channels. You always hated the media." She continued her trek to the mailbox and then stopped short.

She looked at the navy blue truck parked in one of the far spaces, and saw the redhead inside.

"Kate - " he began quietly.

Her hesitation was over in just a few seconds, and she strode over with a wide, dimpled smile, sticking her hand into the passenger's side window. "Hi, I'm Kate," she said with a friendly grin.

"Jen," Shepard replied, smiling forcedly, climbing out of the car. Gibbs shifted his weight onto his other leg, electing not to say anything.

"I'm sorry he dragged you out this far," Kate continued in her usual, genial tone. "Our office is kind of out in the middle of nowhere."

"Not a problem," Jen replied, offering back another nervous smile. "It's beautiful country."

Kate was just about to say something when McGee came racing out of the building, shouting, "We got one!" Behind him, Tony, Viv, Ziva, and Abby were running along, throwing on jackets and grabbing laptops as they ran. "NSSL says the caps are breaking up fast!"

Kate quickly turned back to Jen. "Nice to meet you," she offered with another smile, then took off, grabbing a falling bag out of Abby's hands, tossing it into the refurbished old mini-RV as she took off towards the team's truck.

"Let's go, let's go!" Tony shouted, pulling the connecting wires off of the instrument panel and tossing them into the SUV.

McGee clapped the laptop shut, starting to run towards the mini-RV as a cord ripped out the back. He swore softly, grabbing it off the ground as he continued to run and nearly ran into Gibbs, who quickly stepped out of the way. "Sorry, sir," he barely called over his shoulder as he sprinted towards his car.

"Camera, Ziva!" Kate shouted, sweeping the maps off the top of the van and throwing them into the front seat.

"I got it, I got it," the Israeli called back, snapping the tripod into its closed position.

"Viv, a little help!" Abby shouted, quickly taking apart the Doppler satellite receiver and tossing down the parts without looking. The redhead caught each, stowing it quickly into the back.

"Come on!" Ziva shouted, waving at her teammates, then saw Gibbs standing there. "Welcome back, Gibbs!"

"I'm not back!"

Jen came out to the door, and seeing the commotion, walked over to Gibbs, who stood watching quietly, an indescribable look on his face. "They can handle this," he replied.

He seemed unbothered as she handed him a coffee. "You're not going to follow?"

"Hm?" he asked, distracted, looking up at the sky.

"TOTO 2 ready!" Viv shouted, slamming down the trunk door, running around to the passenger's side and climbing in to the already moving van.

"TOTO 3 ready!" Abby called, shutting the RV door and running towards the passenger's side as McGee started up the engine.

"You're not going to follow?" she repeated.

He smiled. "I don't chase any more, Jen," he said measuredly. He paused, then suddenly frowned. "The papers."

"What?" Jen stopped. "Kate didn't sign them?"

Gibbs grabbed her hand, running towards their truck.

"Where are we going?" Jen exclaimed as he jumped into the truck.

"We're going to chase," Gibbs replied, starting up the truck.

"I can't believe this," Jen moaned as he wheeled out of the parking lot. "I've been a director less than 24 hours, and I'm back in the field."

"Just think of it as reliving the past," Gibbs prodded earnestly. "Like when we were chasing together in Kansas."

"Then you'll remember how I hate this part," Jen exclaimed as Gibbs ripped out of the parking lot.

"Jen, you were a good chaser," he pointed out. "And I'm only going to get the papers."

"Welcome back, Gibbs!" Abby shouted, waving happily as the RV tore past them.

"I'm not back!"

**_TBC_**


	2. Chapter 2

**Stormchasers**  
by Sammie

Disclaimer in Part 1.

* * *

"You owe me twenty dollars." Ziva held out her hand to her passenger.

"What! I don't think so!" Viv exclaimed.

"Gibbs didn't go home with that redhead," Ziva replied. "So you owe me twenty dollars, Miss Blackadder."

"But he still might, Miss David," Viv retorted.

"But he has already come to chase," Ziva pointed out with a grin.

"So give each other ten dollars and be done with it," Tony's voice retorted over the radio. "Abs, where is this storm supposed to be?"

"Northeast, twenty miles ahead," Abby radioed. "If we go a little faster, we'll meet with it before touchdown."

Ziva frowned, looking around the flat land. There was no tornado in sight, and no indications of one except for the dark dryline in the distance. "I don't see anything."

"We should take the 30 until further notice," Viv said into the small mouthpiece. She frowned as she flipped another page. "We're running parallel to the 30 right now."

"There a road we can turn onto that'll take us to the 30?" Tony's voice crackled over the line.

"Sure, there's one about a mile ahead," Viv replied, her finger tracing the line on the map. "We're going to take a little walk in the woods."

Ahead of them, Tony drove another fifty feet and then suddenly turned off at some dirt road.

"That was not a mile ahead," Ziva mused. "What's he doing?"

Viv groaned as the car rattled along, bouncing them all over the seats. "A Gibbs shortcut!" She yanked out a map. "Have to find this road," she muttered to herself, shaking her head. "It's like, 'Bob's Road'!"

Ziva chuckled. "Just hope it doesn't turn out to be a Tony shortcut also," she replied.

"I heard that!" came Tony's indignant voice. "Once! Once I say I know a shortcut and get lost, and no one lets me forget it!"

"Tony," Viv sighed. "That's because Ducky - Ducky, who can't read a map if his life depended on it - managed to arrive ahead of us that day."

They hit a huge bump, sending them flying several inches into the air, despite the seatbelts.

"This is enough to make somebody ralph," Tony commented.

"DiNozzo," came Kate's sigh. "Please, if you're going to be sick, throw up out of your window, not to your right."

"Hey! We're driving behind you!" Ziva shouted.

"Everyone's a comedian," came Tony's huff over the radio channel. "I do not get sick when I'm driving."

"Where's the 30?" Kate finally asked again. "I don't see it."

"See what?"

"The 30!" Tony exclaimed. "Where's the road?"

"Yes, Vivienne, where's the road?" Ziva teased with a grin.

"There's about five miles of brush along 30," Viv radioed, looking over the map. "The road suggested - and, I'm guessing, the one Tony took - both go through it. See that cornfield?"

"We see the cornfield," came Kate's mutter.

"Right over the cornfield."

"Right over the cornfield WHAT!" Tony was shouting so loud the crackling was almost unintelligible. "What's beyond it?"

"Beyond it? Beyond what?" Viv asked.

"The field!" Kate exclaimed. "What is beyond the field! Brick wall, bearded lady, Oz?"

"It's the highway," Viv radioed back. "It's the 30! Right...about - "

"Whoa!" Ziva shouted as the van's wheels suddenly hit pavement, and she nearly crashed into a car coming along the road. Horns sounded left and right as she jerked the wheel to the left, keeping her eyes peeled for Tony's truck.

" - here," Viv finished, unnecessarily.

- x - x - x - x - x -

"Hey, look who it is!" Tony called, pulling ahead to meet up with the first car in the line. "It's Sellout Fornell," he said with affectionate enthusiasm, referring to their longtime rival and friend.

"Oh, joy. Oh, bliss!" came Ziva's sarcastic voice over the line. Kate grinned.

The long line of black SUVs pulled up alongside on the road, and Tony cranked down his window as did Fornell. "Hey, Fornell!"

"DiNozzo," greeted the older man with a chuckle. "I'm surprised you're still alive, driving like that."

"Driving like that keeps me in the game," Tony grinned. "Twenty says we get there first, old man."

"'Old man'," the older man huffed, albeit with a grin. "Those Pampers Pull-ups make you bold, DiNozzo?"

"Funny, Fornell, funny. Maybe you oughta join all your friends and retire, huh?"

"So you can get the grant?" Fornell grinned.

Tony laughed. "That would be nice."

Fornell laughed. "I'd throw coffee and a croissant over to you as a peace offering, but I don't think Kate would appreciate it."

Kate laughed. "Thank you for your kindness."

"I would like a croissant," Tony said suddenly, more thoughtfully than he should have.

"Tony! You said you went to an all-you-can eat pancakes and sausage place for breakfast!"

"I'm hungry," Tony whined.

Just then a croissant came flying from Fornell's car into the cab, bouncing off the seat and landing on the floor. Tony leaned over, picking it up as Kate gave him a disgusted look. "Five second rule, Mommie."

"DiNozzo, put that croissant down," came Gibbs' voice over the line. "It's muddy and dirty on the floor of that cab. Do you want to get a stomachache like last time?"

Tony made a face at the reprimand, then looked at Kate pleadingly. "Can you peel off the outside?"

Kate sighed, then took the croissant. As she worked on it, Tony called, "Hey, guess who's back?" he grinned, then jerked a thumb backwards.

"I'm not back," came Gibbs' voice over the line.

Tony's car sped up as Fornell's car slowed down. The other two DiNozzo team cars passed by, waving as they went, and Fornell's driver pulled up level with the blue Ford.

"Fornell," Gibbs greeted with a grin, waving.

"Gibbs," Fornell grinned. "Just couldn't stay away or something, huh?"

Gibbs grinned. "Or something."

"Guess you didn't visit any city hairdressers, Gibbs," the other man snorted in laughter, waving a hand at Gibbs' hair. The funnel came into view, and Fornell grinned. "Want to share how it's going to twist?"

Gibbs chuckled. "No way."

"You're no longer in charge of your team, you know."

"Yep," Gibbs agreed, a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

"Um, guys?" Abby's voice came over the radio. "Just wanted to know if you want this one coming up, or you want to catch up with Fornell and go after the next one."

"Give it to us, Abs," Tony ordered.

"Groundspeed 35 miles and hour. Stay on the 30, it's supposed to to come in from the east."

Gibbs cranked up the window to make sure Fornell didn't hear, then picked up the radio receiver in his truck. "DiNozzo."

"Yeah, boss," came the automatic response, and he smiled a little at the appellation despite his retirement several months before.

"Make a right when you can."

* * *

Car doors slammed as the two teams gathered at the diner. Jen slowly climbed out of the truck, heading inside.

Jethro was talking to Tony outside.

Kate came in then, her light leather jacket barely covering the dusty black top she had on, and mud on her loose blue jeans. She stomped her feet at the doorway to the diner, trying to get the mud off of her boots. She was talking with Ziva and Viv, who were standing by the door, fresh coffees warming their hands, and then moved towards the counter. "Three coffees, one with hazelnut, one black, one with milk and sweetner, and one of your 64-ounce sodas, please," she said to the waitress.

Jen took that time to study the other woman, her eyes tracing slowly over the stormchaser.

"Too bad we missed that one," Kate sighed, opening again with conversation. "Driving that many miles for nothing..." she trailed off, shrugging. "Hazard of the job, I guess."

"It can't be easy, with the gas prices," Jen offered, and Kate chuckled.

"Jethro used to complain incessantly about how much of the budget had to go for daily, weekly expenses like gas," Kate replied with an amused smile. "He seems to forget daily details like the fact that we have to eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom." The waitress set her items in front of her, and Kate nodded her thanks as she handed the woman the money. "He forgets everything but his work, sometimes."

"He's good at it," Jen replied in defense.

"He's the best in the game," Kate replied. "But he does tend to forget himself."

Jen watched her, carefully, quietly as she counted out bills and a little change, dropping them onto the counter.

"You're still in love with him, aren't you," Jen said quietly, pointedly. "I can see why, but...that's in the past. You can't hold on to the past, however desperately you might want to."

Kate turned to her, an indescript look on her face. She gave a quick smile, picked up two sugars, and disappeared out the door.

- x - x - x - x - x -

"Still checking on the upflows," Abby replied, typing quickly to bring up a new screen. "Take a look at these dew points."

Gibbs frowned, squinting at the screen. "Kind of low," he said.

Abby and McGee looked at each other, puzzled, then squinted closer at the numbers. "What?"

"Dewpoint of 30," Gibbs pointed out.

"Gibbs, you just need young eyes," Abby laughed. "That's an eight, not a three. Dew point's 80."

Gibbs squinted. "That's an eight?"

"Yes!"

"What does the sector scan on the cell say?" Ziva replied, coming over with a cardboard cupholder. "Kate's drink stop delivery." She pulled out a coffee for McGee and a gigantic soda for Abby.

"What number Caff-Pow! is that?" Gibbs frowned.

"If you must know, #3." Abby slurped happily.

Gibbs gave her a disapproving look, then grabbed a coffee out of the tray, gulping down a good-sized mouthful.

"Hey! That was Kate's!" Ziva protested. "She asked me to put it in the truck while she went to the head."

"I know it's Kate's," Gibbs replied, taking another gulp. "I can smell Tony's hazelnut crap from a mile away."

The woman flipped her long braid over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. "You can go get her another one."

- x - x - x - x - x -

"So."

Jen started, looking to her left at the man who'd just dropped onto the stool next to her. Tony grinned charmingly. "How long you and Gibbs been together?"

Jen startled at the question. "Excuse me?"

"You and Gibbs," he said unabashedly. "How long you been together?"

"Are you sure that's even appropriate to ask?"

"Eh, he's not my boss anymore," Tony grinned. "And you're a redhead, and he married all redheads."

"For your information," Jen began shortly, a little irritated at the personal questions, "I worked on his team six years ago. We just met again a few months ago. I'm the new director of the NSSL."

"Whoa!" The entire room went silent, even the waitresses looking up in surprise.

"D-ng," Tony whistled. "Whew."

- x - x - x - x - x -

Gibbs straightened, stretching. He could see Fornell working on something some distance away and made his way over slowly, inconspicuously.

He watched for a full minute, his expression turning stormy as he strided away, heading straight for the truck where Kate was now sitting on the hood, working on her PDA.

McGee gulped, and the others gathered by the RV turned to look at him, then slowly followed his gaze to their former boss, making his way over to the truck.

"Maybe we should do something," Viv spoke.

"Get Tony?" McGee suggested, unable to move.

"We really ought to intervene," Ziva muttered. "Maybe?"

- x - x - x - x - x -

"Fornell."

Kate looked up up at the familiar voice. "Not really, not last time I looked in the mirror," she replied with a straight face.

Gibbs was no mood for jokes. "Freeman's design," he replied shortly.

He watched as understanding instantly dawned on her face. "Jethro, I'm sorry. I should have told you, but - "

"How did it happen," he replied shortly. "We both know there was no way Freeman's design was going to get into the air."

Kate sighed. "Their...corporate sponsors beg to differ," she said quietly. "They sent in two of the engineers to help with readjustments." Her eyes traveled towards where Fornell's team was. "With the extra help, they got a viable model." She paused. "It's not going to get them as close as TOTO is, but - " she trailed off.

" - if they get it into the air first they get the grant," he finished.

Kate nodded. "Yeah."

"We had planned on four TOTOs," he said carefully. "Why are there only three?"

"We built four." Kate took a deep breath. "Larabee cut a deal with us. He and the gang promised to take one of the TOTOs, try to put it in the air for us down in Texas. It'll help our chances of getting a TOTO into the air earlier."

Gibbs ran a hand through his hair. "That's a lot they're doing for us."

Kate shrugged. "That's what I said." She paused. "Well, they still get a little recognition if they succeed. It'll help them with grants, too." She shrugged. "But I think it still has to do with you saving the Travises two years ago. Think Chris feels pretty...grateful."

He sighed. "I'll give him a call."

She didn't say anything. "Uh. Tony...called him to thank him," she said carefully. "After we worked out all the details."

He nodded slowly, then hesitated, as if wanting to say something more. He didn't, then nodded at her and walked away.

Viv stood on the other side of the SUV, watching as Gibbs left, watching as Kate watched him go. The brunette heaved a sigh, then got off the hood and climbed into the passenger's side.

Viv could see in the sunlight the silverly shimmer of the wrapping paper Tony had used and knew that Kate was looking at her gift, as yet unopened. She walked over quietly, wanting to see the woman's reaction.

Kate didn't seem to notice her approach as she flipped open the top of the box. Viv knew what was inside - a small garnet rose pendant on a silver chain, and a note in Ziva's distinctive script: "From all of us".

"With your birthday just passed, and Christmas so far in the future," she said softly, "we thought this would be a good chance to give it to you."

Kate looked up quickly, and Viv smiled. "Thank you," the brunette said softly.

Viv shifted, a little uncomfortable at all the niceties. "We looked at it online at Bachendorf's, ordered it, and Tony picked it while he was there," she continued, and grinned when Kate's eyes went a little wide. "We all chipped in, and Ducky knows a guy down there who got it to us wholesale." She grinned. "You'd be proud of our ability to cut corners."

Kate smiled as she fingered the necklace. "Still, it's...it's a lot of money."

"We've been saving since you sold yours," Viv replied. "It's not quite as large as your old one, but - " she hesitated. "When Ziva figured out you sold that rose pendant your parents had given you, we - " she shrugged awkwardly.

"I love it," Kate smiled. "Thank you."

Viv grinned.

"We got one!" Abby shouted, waving at them. "We got to get going!"

* * *

"East! East!" Viv could hear Abby calling. "We've got a touchdown!"

"Give me a road!" Tony called. "Impress us, Viv!"

"There are none," Viv retorted, throwing one of her atlases onto the dashboard and grabbing for another. It started to slide, and Ziva reached up to grab it. "We're not going to come on - "

"Get into that field!" Kate's voice came over the line.

"I know what I'm doing. I have to get ahead of it, come at it from the south."

"You can only get at it by going through that field!"

"Hey!" came Tony's sharp reply. "If you were driving we'd still be forty miles back!"

Ziva looked down at her speedometer as the old red truck carrying Kate and Tony shot ahead. She was already doing 70.

A few seconds later, the truck disappeared off into a dirt road in the woods. "I just lost visual," Ziva muttered. "How am I supposed to follow...?"

"Past these woods should be the highway," Viv spoke into the mouthpiece.

"Battlezone just at the end of the field," McGee spoke. "It's not going to stay on the ground long!"

"We're on the road," Kate radioed.

"Possible F2, on the ground," Abby shouted. "It's gorgeous!"

"You stay on this highway, it's coming straight at you,"

"Horizontal rain," Tony's voice crackled. "Hang back, prepare to receive, and we'll see you on the flip side."

- x - x - x - x - x -

"Look at that surf," Kate muttered, pointing off to the side. She carefully brought the digital camera around.

"Does that mean you'll try that two-piece Puerto Rican bikini I got you?" Tony grinned. "Surf's up!"

"Pigs. I work with pigs."

"Look at those clouds," Tony frowned. "I've never seen it like that."

They drove on, the rain pounding the windshield so hard there were no long just drops, but rivers that wipers were trying to part.

Suddenly the twister ahead of them split into two. "Sisters!" Kate gasped, using one hand on the handrail above her door to steady herself, the other holding the camera steady.

There was one brief second of silence, and then she shouted, "We're right under the flanking line.Tony, get us out of here. Get us out of here!"

He was frantically pumping the brakes in the rainy mud. "I'm trying!"

"Tony, we're going to get rolled!"

- x - x - x - x - x -

Jen listened as the radio crackled out, Kate's last audible words telling Tony to get them out. She watched Gibbs' knuckles tighten on the wheel as he leaned forward, watching the storm.

Ahead of them, Ziva was showing more driving panache than either of her bosses, former or current, slamming on the gas and shooting so far forward on the hill the car left the road for a moment. They were speeding forward when Viv's audible 'uh-oh' came over the line.

The two twisters had jumped off the water onto the muddied road, and the tiny red speck that she had assumed was Tony and Kate's truck suddenly disappeared into them.

Gibbs swore, flooring the gas and pulling up fast behind the others, barrelling closer.

The twisters suddenly stopped short and retreated back into the clouds, not before thumping down and settling the truck onto the muddy road like a parent putting a pouty child in a corner.

Doors slammed as the team ran out of their cars towards the truck. Jen jumped out of the cab, running after Gibbs. Ziva and Viv and then Abby and McGee followed.

The doors to the red truck opened at the same time, and two screaming and cheering brunets jumped out, hopping up and down and shouting and hugging. "Did you see that?" Tony shouted, waving at the sky. "Did you see that?"

"We were right in the middle of it!" Kate exclaimed.

"It was INCREDIBLE!" Ziva shouted, running straight past them, jumping up and down in the random puddles as she and Tony carried on their shouted conversations, their enthusiastic delight pouring out as they gestured at the sky. "What was it like!"

"Dark," Kate replied in a deadpan voice.

"Dark," Ziva repeated in disbelief, then looked at Kate's twinkling eyes and grinned.

"You all right?" Gibbs asked, touching Kate's arm.

She nodded, her eyes shining. "Look at this," she grinned, shoving the camera at him, replaying the digital picture. Abby and McGee and Viv soon crowded nearby, each clamoring to see the tape. Gibbs stood over her as she held it up, and there was no mistaking his grin. It was an excellent shot of the twisters coming in, twisting in and out between themselves before it picked up the sudden gray winds and the turning of the car. "Look at that!"

"Are you all right?" Jen asked breathlessly, coming up.

"Oh, we're good," Tony enthused. "We're better than good! Did you see that! We were right in the middle of it!"

"And what for?" Jen exclaimed, her voice snapping. "Did you get TOTO up into that thing?" she pointed out. "To risk lives sitting in the middle of that storm without getting any kind of sensors up into that funnel?"

The team fell silent, looking at each other, half bewildered, half unsure as to what to do.

"We're fine, ma'am," Tony said pointedly, tersely. Behind him, Abby crossed her arms.

"Director Shepard," Kate cut in slowly, quietly. "We'll remember the warning. Rest assured, ma'am, that we don't take UNnecessary risks."

There was another long, chilly silence, Tony's discontent with the new NSSL director quite obvious. They were saved by a honking horn, followed by the sound of cars. "Fashionably late," Tony heckled as Fornell's caravan pulled up, the team obviously happy to put the fight with their director behind them. "We were starting to think you'd never come!"

"Har har," Fornell replied, looking at their red truck. "You enter her in the mud wrestling contest?"

"Funny, Fornell."

"I'm a funny guy. You guys all right?" he asked with genuine concern.

"Aww, he worries about us," Ziva cooed.

"My source of perennial entertainment would be gone without DiNozzo," Fornell joked. "You get good video?"

"You can watch it on the six o'clock news," Kate replied laughingly, waving the camera but not offering a look at the tape. "If we decide to share it."

"Guess you had your fun for today," Fornell kidded. "You going to leave me a few, huh?"

"'Course," Tony offered gallantly. "There's plenty of toys to go around the sandbox."

* * *

Tony and Kate began to pull ahead. "We're going to get this one!" he shouted. "Where's Fornell?"

"They turned off a few miles back. They thought they were going to get it on that back road," McGee grinned.

"So much for sharing your sandbox toys," Kate snickered.

Tony grinned. "Muahahaha," he laughed evilly, rubbing his hands together in a stereotypical evil genius look.

"Please keep your hands on the wheel," Kate replied patiently.

"Gibbs' gut was right," the brunet murmured, looking up at the sky over the wheel. "That ninety degree turn just a few seconds ago would've thrown Fornell off." He gunned the gas pedal.

"Back off and set up," Kate radioed.

- x - x - x - x - x -

Gibbs pulled off behind the others. Both vehicles were still moving when Abby and Viv, the respective passengers, jumped out to make the last minute preparations for receiving.

Jen hurried out. "Tell me what to do," she instructed, and all four looked at her, puzzled, then to Gibbs, who gave them a slight nod.

"We need to hook up these wires," Viv began, handing a set to Jen.

Gibbs turned, watching the old, battered red Ford running down the road, straight for the twister. It was going to turn - it was going to turn. He started to rush back to radio when he saw the truck turn off the path, pulling up towards the north, and grinned to himself. Tony and Kate's instincts for chasing had always been good, and only ever got better.

- x - x - x - x - x -

"It's going to turn," Kate muttered.

"Oh h-ll," Tony murmured. "It's coming for us."

"Get off to the side, get off to the side," Kate replied, crawling into the backseat, then opening the truck's back window and crawling out. She tossed on the three switches, then yanked the release cord, unlocking TOTO out of its moorings.

"You got her ready?" Tony shouted.

"She's ready, just get us closer!" Kate shouted, ducking as a car tire flew over here. "Whoa!"

"Debris!" Tony shouted, searching frantically for somewhere to turn off. He floored the gas pedal, putting more distance between them and the tornado. "H-ll!"

"Tony!" Kate suddenly screamed from the truck bed. "Go right!"

He looked up and felt the blow at the same time, as a tree torn out of the ground barrelled straight for the truck and slid under it, lifting the bed into the air. He could hear Kate's yell as she was slammed into the truck's back window. "Kate!"

"Get us off this thing!" she shouted, climbing back into the safety of the cab. "Get us out of here!"

Tony swerved, sending the car spinning in a circle. The back wheels got tangled up into the branches of the tree, and the tree, still skidding across the road at a frightening speed, took the car with it, pushing it along like a leaf before flipping it straight into a ditch by the road.

- x - x - x - x - x -

"Tony!"

Gibbs' head snapped up at the scream coming over the radio, and then there was a loud crash and silence. Ziva jiggled the radio receivers anxiously. "Tony? Kate. Hello."

"They went off the road somewhere," McGee muttered. "I was watching through the camera - they just sort of disappeared off the road. I lost visual. No idea where they went."

"Get in the car!" Gibbs barked, and the team scrambled. Abby was still in the back of the old RV, working on the strapped down computer with Viv as Ziva and McGee took off, Gibbs and Jen following close behind.

A few minutes in came Ziva's voice over the intercom. "Kate just responded - they were in an accident."

"What's TOTO doing, sitting in the middle of the road?" McGee wondered. He pulled the RV off to the side, allowing Ziva and Gibbs to drive past.

Jen watched as Abby and McGee jumped off to pick up the machine, sitting placidly in the middle of the road in the middle of all the debris, an odd island of serenity in the midst of the chaos. She tore her eyes away, then looked ahead.

They drove past two four-foot long, black tire skid marks, which suddenly stopped. A few feet away was a red, smoking heap.

They saw Tony, leaning heavily against the truck. The truck was tipped over on the driver's side, the passenger's side door sticking straight up in the air, propped open by a stick. Kate's hand came out of the cab, dropping something out of the open truck door, and then disappearing inside to pick up some other stuff. The front of the truck was crushed. The car was totaled.

"Hey boss." Tony gave a weak grin as they pulled up.

"What happened?" Ziva asked, parking and jumping out.

"That half of a tree blew in front of us, I swerved to miss it but got caught under it," Tony muttered. "We flipped a few times before dropping onto the driver's side." He smacked the car. "We're lucky Old Faithful held together long as it did."

"How come TOTO's sitting out there on the road?" Viv asked.

"Kate had it up and going and unlocked, so she unlocked the tailgate and shoved it off the back of the truck after that d-mn tree got stuck under our back wheels."

"Well, seems the design worked like a charm," Ziva commented. "It's upright, no mess, sitting in the road, although we will have to wait for McGee and Abby's final analysis."

"Our final analysis is that we did good!" Abby shouted, bouncing out of the RV. "TOTO's just banged up a little. Still good to go."

"DiNozzo,"came Kate's voice from inside the cab. Out flew another bag. "I told you not to bring that Rolex in your bag. It's busted now."

Kate's head popped up out of the passenger's side, her arms coming up to push herself out of the passenger's side. She pulled herself up easily to perch precariously on the side of the truck. Jen watched as Gibbs reached up a hand, which she accepted as she swung down off the cab.

Tony and McGee gave Abby meaningful, prodding looks. McGee tilted her head over at Kate, who was busy looking over the truck. Tony nodded vigorously.

"Kaaaate," Abby smiled sweetly. "You know...I couldn't help but notice how close we are to Wakita."

"No."

"You know what I think," McGee said with mock solemnity. "I think that, after that accident, we should have you and Tony checked over."

"I think we should see a doctor just to be safe," Tony agreed.

Jen frowned, looking puzzled as Gibbs began to grin. Abby began to cheer, as Ziva just laughed.

"No!" Kate exclaimed, picking up her things off the ground, trying to suppress a grin. "No."

"But Dr. Mallard is such a good doctor!" McGee protested.

"Plus, plus, I believe a little rest and food would be beneficial to my nerves after that accident," Tony agreed with a big grin, slapping a high five with McGee. "Very beneficial."

"We are not invading Ducky!"

_TBC_


	3. Chapter 3

**Stormchasers**  
by Sammie

Disclaimer in Part 1.

mathhhh - glad you liked Jen's "past" comment. ;-)

Beginning here (and in later parts of the story) there's a particular view of Gibbs' leaving (generally spoken of by Kate). It came from discussion on the "Friends of NCIS" board, and it is NSGA wife's idea about Ducky and Gibbs' tense relationship in the opening of Season 4, which I will attempt to summarize here.

The general assumption was that Ducky and Gibbs fought because Ducky was mad Gibbs did not tell him about his first wife and his daughter (Shannon and Kelly). NSGA wife argued that this was not in keeping with Ducky's personality and with what they showed in "Hiatus" - Ducky drove Gibbs home, was very gentle with him, and so on. The tension did not begin until after Gibbs left; there was none before. Based on these observations, NSGA wife formed a very coherent and logical argument - and imho, the best explanation I have seen - for Ducky's behavior. She said that Ducky was disappointed in Gibbs.

Ducky was of the World War 2 era, in which they were taught to suck it up and press on, and never to quit: perseverance, loyalty, and so on. In the wake of Gibbs' trauma, Ducky felt Gibbs need time to recover, and he felt Gibbs needed understanding in mourning and was perfectly able to care for him and be patient when Gibbs needed it. However, when Gibbs just dumped the team and left, Ducky became angry - for THE TEAM. He had seen them worry about Gibbs, fight, need Gibbs with them, and Gibbs just left (and left so far he was almost unreachable). Gibbs' quitting, to Ducky, is evidence of a fundamental character flaw - selfish abandonment. Ducky becomes angry for the team; he could care less for himself, but the way Gibbs has inadvertently hurt those Ducky loves - Abby, Tony, Ziva, McGee - is to Ducky not so forgiveable.

I found the explanation so fitting (for Ducky and for Gibbs' behavior at the time) that it worked its way into "Stormchasers" unconsciously (with Kate taking more of that opinion - offense taken for her teammates) and I later asked NSGA wife for permission/forgiveness. Thank you to NSGA wife for the insightfulness and the kindness!

* * *

"DUUUUUCKY!" 

Jen watched as an elderly man came out, waving and laughing. Ahead of him, Abby and Ziva were leaning out of their windows, waving and cheering as the cars pulled up in front of his house.

"Look who we brought!" Abby shouted, waving at the blue Dodge behind them, leaning so far out that only Kate's firm hand tugging on her shirt kept her from falling out.

"Jethro!" Ducky laughed, waving as everyone barrelled out of the cars.

"Duck," Gibbs grinned, clapping him in a close hug.

"I'm glad to see you're well," Ducky laughed. "Very interesting mustache."

Gibbs shrugged, a tiny grin on his face.

"Did we see any action today?" Ducky asked with a big smile, and a huge affirmative cheer went up, followed by everyone chattering at once. "Caitlin," he said warmly as the woman kissed on him on the cheek.

"You should have seen it!" Tony grinned.

"Come on inside," Ducky encouarged. "Where is Timothy?" he asked, waving at the RV.

"McGee will catch up with us," Ziva explained. "We had an accident with the truck."

"Yeah," Tony sighed. "Truck flipped a couple times. McGee took the van; he's waiting for the insurance agent."

"You are very lucky Bingham Insurance will even insure you, given how you drive," Ducky replied, shaking a chastising finger at Tony and Ziva.

"Hey! We only learned from the master," Tony replied, waving at Gibbs.

Ducky peered over at the cars. "You got TOTO back, I hope."

"Yep," Abby nodded. "We put it on Gibbs' truck with TOTO 3. There wasn't enough room for all of us in the RV and TOTO 3."

"Relocating its center of mass was ingenius," Viv put in. "No mess this time - no sensor balls all over the place. It was great."

"Glad to hear it," Ducky grinned, nodding approvingly as he hugged Abby. "I suppose that it is worth that investment of money," he continued, his eyes twinkling at Kate, who just grinned. "Come inside!"

- x - x - x - x - x -

"Make a hole," Kate called, holding up a big frying pan full of eggs.

Ziva looked up, seeing Jen hanging back and McGee just arriving, quickly offered her her seat and a clean plate from the stack in the middle of the table. She then handed McGee an empty plate, pulling up a chair for him next to the redhead. Gibbs came by, sticking his clean spoon straight into the pan Kate held and taking a mouthful eggs. She merely shook her head, stuck a serving spoon directly into the pan, and set it on the table.

"We come here to fuel up," Viv explained as the others happily greeted McGee. "Ducky's housekeeper and cook is the best in the state. Her burritos are to die for."

"Where's Mrs. Mallard?" Abby asked, looking around as she tossed around what looked like a stuffed toy hippo that made...noises.

"My mother went to the senior center this afternoon," Ducky called from the kitchen. "She doesn't remember her bridge partners, or that she goes every week, but she remembers how to beat everyone in the game."

"Look at that sad booboo face," Ziva teased, pinching Tony's cheek. "Does Mrs. Mallard's Italian gigolo miss her?"

Tony made a face.

"You could move furniture," Kate offered with a grin as she speared his steak away and put it back with the other fried steaks. "You can't eat that."

"Awwww, Kate," Tony pouted like a little boy.

"Your cholestrol was off the charts," she replied firmly, replacing it with a piece of chicken. She then spooned peas onto both his and McGee's plates, getting scowling looks from both.

Ducky just laughed. "If she had not done it, I would have."

"No caffeine for Abby," Kate told Ducky. "She had four Caff-Pow!s before we got here and she's going to get another as soon as we're on the road."

"Four?" Gibbs frowned.

Ducky just laughed as Abby joined Tony in the pouting, and patted them both. "It is for your health, you know," he chuckled.

"Aww, Kate," Abby begged.

"None, Abby," Gibbs cut in. "Four!"

"Hey!" Abby protested. "You bring me them, sometimes!"

"I'm going up to take a shower," Kate called. "Leave me some food. Tony, maybe you should go soon after - we've tracked enough mud all over our truck and Ducky's house."

"Is that an offer?" Tony grinned, then received an instant head whack from Gibbs. "Ow!" he rubbed the back of his head ruefully. "I've forgotten how hard those things can be."

"All right," Ziva grinned as the gigantic bowl of Mexican rice was set on the table. "You're the best, Elena," she said to the cook. "Love your rice."

Elena laughed, handing her the serving spoon. "So that's the only reason you guys come over."

"Elena makes the best Mexican rice," Abby began, explaining to Jen. "She makes so much of it, too; it's like she's got her own rice p- "

"Don't!" Ziva and Viv cried. Too late.

"Rice paddy dike," Tony snickered right on cue.

"Oh please," McGee groaned. There were moans from around the table.

Jen looked around, confused as Tony continued to laugh. "Pinpin Pula..."

"We need to come up with a code word for 'rice'," Viv groaned, spooning herself some. "Every time we come and we have rice, he has to bring up Pinpin."

"Pinpin Pula?" Jen asked quietly.

"It means 'rice paddy dike' in Tagalog!" Tony grinned.

"DiNozzo, I swear, if I hear you say that one more time," Gibbs threatened as he filled his plate, then headed out to the porch.

"Who's Pinpin Pula?"

"Slime," Tony replied, his mouth full. He started to reach for the steak that Kate had put back onto the general plate when Viv slapped his hand with her spoon. "Hey! You're not Kate! Do that again and you're going to be wearing those mashed potatoes!"

"Be glad it was Viv," Ziva replied, swallowing her bit of potato. "Me, I would have stabbed you with my fork."

"Pinpin Pula was this international researcher in the lab with Gibbs and Fornell from a long time ago," Ducky explained. "He was never quite as good as either of them. He became quite jealous of Fornell when Fornell landed a corporate sponsor, and he was always jealous of Gibbs."

"Me and Abby and Fornell's designer Freeman," McGee explained, "were having a friendly race to see who could get a design like TOTO done first. Pinny didn't have the kind of research we did."

"So he tried to steal designs," Tony cut in. "Freeman had managed to get his design to their corporate sponsor before, so there was no way Poopla could steal it without having a huge corporate sponsor down his back. So he went after McGee and Abby's."

"Fornell caught him," Abby replied. "Caught him redhanded, too, decided to amuse himself by turning him over to Gibbs."

"Who would have beat the snot out of him," Tony began. "Rearranged that pretty little face."

"'Would have'?" Jen asked.

"Good thing Kate was there to stop Gibbs," Viv snickered. "Otherwise Pinny would be sharing a nice new pine box home with the worms."

"Where is he now? I'm assuming that he'd be out of business," Jen replied, clearly disgusted.

"Oh, he says he's still chasing tornadoes," Ziva replied with a straight face. The director looked shocked.

"The many that Maine sees," Abby snickered, and the two women slapped a high-five.

"He wasn't all bad," McGee said thoughtfully. "He liked my jokes. What?" he protested as his teammates groaned and booed. "What? I'm funny!" he insisted. "See, try this one," he replied, turning to Jen.

"Don't inflict your jokes on her," Ziva groaned.

"A three legged dog walks into the bar. He walks right up to the bar, right to the bartender and says, 'I'm looking for the man who shot my paw.' My paw!" McGee beamed. "Get it? Three-legged dog?"

"Boo hiss," Tony hollered as the others moaned. Biscuits flew across the table, nailing McGee in the head and chest.

"Hey!" McGee protested. "That was funny!"

"Where'd you get that joke? JD?"

"Has to be JD," Viv muttered. "He's the only one who tells the same kind of awful jokes."

"They're funny!" McGee protested. He bit into a biscuit. "Hey! They're honey biscuits!"

Jen gave a small gasp and backed away as the team made a mad scramble for McGee. "I want my biscuit back!" "Hand it over." "Gimme my biscuit."

"People who are hungry shouldn't throw biscuits!" McGee huffed, then quickly licked them all. He smiled like a Cheshire cat as they all stopped short, staring at him.

Jen looked disgusted.

"I just lost my appetite," Viv muttered.

"Elena, do you have any more biscuits?" Abby called into the kitchen.

"McGee, you're disgusting," Tony declared.

"I learned from the best," McGee retorted, happily lining up his many biscuits on his plate. He turned to Jen. "Last year, when we gathered on Labor Day, Tony licked his finger and stuck it into the biggest piece of pie so none of us would take it. So Gibbs took his licked finger and stuck it all over the bowl of peas."

"Tony went home with the whole bowl," Ziva snickered.

"Boss couldn't have chosen something better, like mashed potatoes," Tony muttered.

"That's 'cause he hates peas, and knows you're no fan of 'em, either."

"I understand you're the new NSSL director," Ducky quickly cut in, trying to change the topic. "Tony mentioned it."

"Oh, yes," Shepard smiled. "I am. Only about twenty-four hours."

"And already getting to know your chasers," Ducky chuckled, and the team cheered.

"So how did you all come to work for Je - Gibbs?" she asked, beginning to feel a little more comfortable with the bubbly team.

"Abby and I have known Jethro a long time," Ducky chuckled. "I first met him here many years ago, before he worked in Kansas."

"Oh, with Stan," Jen murmured.

"You know of Stan?" Tony asked.

"Yes." Jen paused. "I worked with Gibbs and Stan in Kansas for a season."

"So you're an old hand at this!" Abby enthused. "You should come chasing with us more often."

"That's, uh, quite all right," Jen smiled weakly.

"Gibbsh foun'me," came Tony's voice, muffled from the food in his mouth.

"Must you talk with your mouth full?" Viv sighed.

Tony made a face at her as he swallowed. "I was doing this and that," he explained.

"He was a TV weatherman," Ziva offered, snickering. "Where was that? Baltimore?"

"I thought it was Philadelphia," Viv teased.

"Or Peoria?"

Tony glared at them all. "But all that matters now is that I'm here," he chirped. "Right in Tornado Alley."

"I joined Gibbs a few months after Tony," Viv began. She shrugged. "My brother Rex - he was a researcher, and he'd always wanted to be a chaser, but he died of cancer about five years ago. That's when I switched from research to chasing."

"I'm sorry," Jen said softly.

Viv shrugged. "It's all right."

"Gibbs offered to take me on after I did a few stints of computer work with them," McGee grinned.

"I'm on a foreign exchange," Ziva smiled. "One of those meterologists from around the world who come here to chase."

"And Kate?" Jen asked. The table suddenly got very quiet, as the teammates exchanged looks. "How did she get into this?"

"Kate started chasing after college," Tony said quietly. "She joined with us shortly after Viv did, but she's chased longer than any of us but Gibbs, and she's been in the Alley from the start."

"She was on William Baur's chasing team when we met her," Viv replied. "She was good, very good. Her..." she paused. "She was seeing one of her teammates, one of the engineers, who was killed in a freak car accident in the middle of a chase we were doing together. After that, it was just a little too much to stay with Baur, so when Gibbs offered her a job, she joined us."

"Oh," Jen said softly. "I'm sorry."

"She and Gibbs - chasing is kind of personal," Tony said quietly. "Gibbs lost his first wife and his daughter. He was away on a chase when their house got hit."

Jen sucked in her breath. "He never told me this."

"He never told us, either," Viv replied in a hushed tone. "Ziva found out when she was looking us all up to see who she wanted to work with. We figure that he knows that we know, but we just don't talk about it."

"His family died fifteen years ago this past spring. Guess it all hit and he decided to retire," McGee said glumly. "He's been chasing so long, too."

"Some bragging rights we had," Abby smiled sadly. "'Fore Gibbs retired, we had two chasers who'd seen F5s."

Jen stopped. "F5," she gasped. They were monsters. It was rare that anybody saw one at all; they appeared less than 1 of the time, and only the most seasoned of chasers had seen them - and from far away.

"It was the Oklahoma F5 in '96," Tony confirmed. "Gibbs saw it at a distance of a little over a mile away. His telephoto shots were really good, though."

"'96," Jen murmured. "NSSL forecasts had lifted indices from minus six through minus ten. Record outbreaks that year."

"Memorable year," McGee said, as if recalling a history lesson. "First time a TOTO flew." There were grins around the table.

"Bill and Jo Harding," Abby grinned. "Their Dorothy - got her her to fly for the first time in a F5 that year. What a way to start a project!"

"I remember that," Jen smiled. "That was hot."

"Franks had picked up the storm around the same time, but they didn't have a TOTO. They just got photos - Gibbs' telephoto shots were some of the best. The Hardings' team was really busy with the Doppler stuff, so they didn't get as many good photos and as good video coverage."

"We've all been building off the Harding design," McGee replied. "Trying to get one that deploys faster, with less damage."

"The idea to recenter the center of mass was Kate and Gibbs' idea," Ziva added. "They were visiting her oldest brother in California, and one of their kids' toys is this little bird that, when you push over, it rocks back and forth until it rights itself."

"It's a center of mass toy," McGee explained. "Since they've relocated the center of mass farther down in the bird than in the middle, it'll right itself on its own. Kate and Gibbs came back, asked if it were possible for us to design something like it, to keep TOTO upright after getting knocked around by debris and wind."

"The Harding model was a really good prototype," Abby offered, "but it was kind of clumsy and took forever to prepare for deployment. Plus, it was by some ingenius fixing they got her to fly. The whole pack was too light to reach the core. We're trying to fix all that. Get closer than ever."

"Still," Viv replied. "The Hardings got her to fly for the first time in a F5. There's not much beating that!"

"That must have been so sweet," Abby sighed. "I want to see a F5 sometime!"

"So," Jen looked around at them. "If it wasn't Abby, who else saw a F5?"

- x - x - x - x - x -

Kate dried off her hair, twisting it up into a quick ponytail. She pulled on her loose fitting jeans and a clean blouse, then slipped her hand into her bag and pulled out the small red velvet box and opened it to reveal the garnet rose she'd been given earlier that day.

She stood in front of the mirror, slipping on the chain and taking care to clasp it properly. She ran her fingers down over it, smiling a little.

There was a knock on the door. "Caitlin?"

"Come on in, Ducky."

The door opened as she latched on the clasp. Ducky smiled as he looked down at the rose. "It's beautiful."

"It is," Kate said softly, an unconscious smile spreading over her face. "Thank you."

Ducky shook his head, waving it off. "They really wanted to do this for you," he said with a small smile. "Once they found out you sold your things to help finish TOTO. You kept a good secret for half a year."

Kate just shifted uncomfortably.

Ducky sat down on the bed nearby, then said softly, "I was surprised to see Jethro." He watched as Kate's eyes flickered down at her bag, away from hers. "He looks well."

"Yes," Kate replied shortly, shoving her things into her bag. She handed Ducky the wet towel. "Thank you."

"Are you all right, Caitlin?" he asked gently.

"Why wouldn't I be?" she asked, shrugging.

"You don't look fine," Ducky said quietly.

"The accident was just a close call."

"I'm not talking about the accident," the doctor said gently. "I'm talking about seeing Jethro." She didn't say anything, so he gave her arm a fatherly squeeze. "You don't work together for five years, date for three of those five just to throw that all away."

Kate gave a short, resigned laugh. "I didn't throw anything away, Ducky."

"But you think he did."

Kate looked at him steadily. "And you don't?"

"He still is working in tracking storms," Ducky muttered, but his reluctance was a giveaway to his true feelings. He paused, then said, "I understand he came for you to sign the financial papers. That he needs to cut ties with a specific team in order to work at his NSSL job."

Kate snorted. "That's what he said."

"You don't believe him?"

"Please," Kate muttered. "How long do you think this job will last? A couple months? He can't stand being behind a desk. He can't commit to it. He'll break it soon enough, just like he broke his commitment to TOTO."

"TOTO's done, Caitlin."

"Not until we get it to fly."

"Caitlin - "

"You know as well as I do," Kate snapped. "He can't commit. No - he won't commit. He's a d-mn perfectionist. He won't commit to anything unless he can be assured of getting what HE wants."

"Is that so wrong?" Ducky asked gently. "Kate, it was the fifteenth anniversary of his wife and his daughter's deaths."

"So?" Kate shot back. "Fine way to remember them, to quit chasing tornadoes. He left the one job that makes up for their deaths because he feels that he doesn't have anything to show after fifteen years. Because we haven't achieved what HE deems to be progress."

"Kate," Ducky said gently. "We haven't made that much progress in twenty, twenty-five years. NSSL has been building TOTOs since the eighties, and of all the Vortex teams on the ground in '95 and '96, only the Hardings managed to get their Dorothy into the air. And who, since? That early warning system has stalled for ten years. You know that as well as I."

"What if it takes us years and years to develop this new warning system?" Kate replied softly, almost to herself. "What if we don't succeed? Maybe we can't get a result now. Maybe we'll be long dead before they figure it out enough to get us a system. It doesn't mean we give up." She rubbed her arm in frustration. "But he will. Look at his job. Look at the team. Look at TOTO."

"Look at his relationships?" Ducky said wisely, and Kate fell silent. She picked up her bag, starting to head out. "He chooses his battles, Kate," Ducky said gently. "He won't fight unless he can win. He doesn't fight to take beatings. He plays to win."

"Yes," Kate agreed, turning at the doorway. "But he can't win if he won't play." She disappeared out the door.

- x - x - x - x - x -

"Kate was engaged to a fellow storm chaser," Ziva said quietly. "She and her fiance, they'd met in college. They'd dated for two years, were going to marry as soon as tornado season was over."

Tony looked around, checking to make sure Kate was not there. "He'd gone to check out the damage path from one of the tornadoes his team had just tracked, and she was going out to meet him," he explained. "The cell from that tornado merged with another nearby, made the F5. It came in wthout warning, picked him up before he got a chance to get away in his car."

"I thought you said her Baur teammate and boyfriend died in a car accident," Jen frowned.

"Oh, Tim Kerry died in the accident," Viv clarified. "We're talking about her fiance, Paul. How old did you say Kate was, then, Ziva?"

"Fresh out of college - 22. Her friend Marcie said Kate'd been chasing with Baur's team for three months when it happened." Ziva snorted, shaking her head.

"That was one busy F5," Tony muttered. "It's big benefit was picking up Dorothy, of course. But it killed Kate's fiance, Jonas Miller, and three families."

"The F3 he was checking out jumped back into the clouds and seemed to have left," Ziva continued, "but it was just merging with another cell. The first thing that F5 did was drop straight down on him, even before Miller got sucked into it and long before the Hardings got to it."

"I think that baby was on the ground for a good forty minutes total," Abby said thoughtfully.

"Since her fiance, Kate hasn't dated a stormchaser until Gi - " Viv stopped short, avoiding Jen's gaze as her eyes drifted towards the porch. "Anyhow, until...him, Tim Kerry's was as close she's ever gotten to dating somebody in this line of work, and even then, he was an engineer, really."

"I'd be gunshy of dating chasers if my fiance were sucked into a vortex right in front of me," Abby muttered.

Jen turned white, her fork coming to a standstill over her food. "Kate saw it?"

"We're not sure on the details, but Marcie said that Kate drove out to meet him," Ziva replied. "They'd been trying to reach her by cell phone. Given the last tower to pick up a wireless signal from her phone from where she was, they figure she was less than half a mile away, close enough even to see her fiance's car twist up into it."

"Close enough to be killed herself, if she wasn't careful," Tony put in.

"We're 99 sure it's all the same F5, but Gibbs doesn't want us to pester her about it," McGee replied. "Doesn't want to dreg up bad memories, I guess."

"That makes Kate the only one of us who's seen a F5 up close," Viv said somberly. "Even Gibbs only saw that one from a mile away."

Jen shook her head, having lost her appetite.

- x - x - x - x - x -

The door slap-banged shut, and Gibbs was quiet. Kate had come out to sit on the front steps, leaning against the right-hand railing, poking at her plate of food. She finally sat down on the top step, entirely oblivious to his presence on the porch swing.

He watched her for a good five minutes, watching the slight wind pick up the hair in her ponytail and toss it about her shoulders. "That's for eating," he said with amusement, indicating her plate of food. "Not for poking."

She looked up sharply. "How long have you been out here?"

"Longer than you." He sat down a few feet away at the other end of the top step, leaning against the other railing.

They sat in silence for awhile, and then he noticed her mischievous, dimpled smile with a little alarm. "Nice truck," she grinned, and he knew instantly what she was thinking of. "Insured?"

He didn't need for her to say any more than she had for him to guess where her thoughts were going. "You can't have it," he retorted immediately, but he couldn't help the tiny grin crossing his face.

"Well, if it's insured," she pointed out.

"Liability only because full coverage on a new truck would have been too much," he replied.

"New truck, new job, new girlfriend - " she pointed at the mustache " - new hair. It's like a whole new you!" she joked.

"Kate," he sighed.

"You have to admit this is a little awkward," she said pointedly.

"I will that," he conceded.

They fell back into a comfortable silence as the sun began to set. After a long moment, she said in a friendly tone, "Jen seems nice."

He glared.

"Uh-oh," Kate replied, the corners of her mouth twitching. He knew she was enjoying this exchange. "She's not nice?"

Gibbs took a deep breath. "She is nice."

"That's good." Gibbs waited - he knew in a second her curiosity would get the better of her. He looked at her steadily, waiting.

"Where'd you meet her? At headquarters?"

"Kate!" Gibbs sighed. "I don't want to fight."

"Fighting," Kate laughed. "I fight with Tony. Now that's fighting. This is just making conversation. Warming you up for driving with Jen. I'm not sure she likes silence any more than anybody else does."

Gibbs ran a hand through his hair. "Kate - ! Fine. Yes, I met her at the NSSL headquarters."

"And what does she do?"

Gibbs coughed. "She's...the new director."

She stared at him for a moment, completely shocked for a moment. He could see her lips trembling with barely suppressed laughter.

"Don't say it."

"Did I say something?" she asked, her face radiating innocence.

"You were going to say something!"

"I wasn't going to say anything," she replied without a hint of a guilty look. "Director Shepard...think you can get her to have NSSL give us head starts on information?" Her eyes twinkled.

"Kate," he sighed.

They finally fell silent as she finished her dinner. The rays from the setting sun shone on the rose, illuminating it beautifully. Gibbs checked his impulse to reach over and touch it, sitting there on her neck.

"Your rose," he finally said. "Very nice." He paused. "Bit smaller than the previous one."

She frowned. "It's my garnet rose. You haven't seen it in awhile," she said vaguely, turning to look up at the sky.

He frowned, more than a little upset that she obviously was not going to tell him about how she'd come up with the money.

"Tony told me," he said neutrally. "Told me you sold the garnet rose your father gave you to pay the difference to finish TOTO. Later told me you sold your jewelry and some of the antiques in your apartment. All of it?"

"All but my grandmother's pooka shell necklace. It wouldn't have brought a lot of money, anyhow," she said shortly, then gave him a sharp look now, a look that promised to kill Tony later for breaking that confidence. "It had to be done."

He nodded slowly, still watching her. She looked back, a neutral expression on her face, waiting for him to comment.

"Even the engagement ring Paul gave you?" he asked after a long pause. He knew he was being a coward, not quite willing to hear her direct affirmation that she'd happily parted with HIS gift to her - pink diamond stud earrings on her latest birthday.

Her gaze never waivered, but her lips set into a thinner line. She blinked once, then started to get up to go.

"It was TOTO or a girlish fantasy about keeping jewelry - engagement ring, necklace, or earrings," she replied shortly, turning at the door. "And I thought it was a better remembrance of any stormchaser," she said, deliberately vague on the identity of the chaser, "that TOTO be finished." She opened the door and disappeared inside.

* * *

Jen lay in bed that night, staring up at the ceiling of her room. Ziva was on the other side of the room, snoring away on one of the many airbeds the team kept stashed in their RV. 

- x - x - x - x - x -

Kate quietly left her room, where Abby and Viv were already asleep. She slipped down the dark stairs, stopping to look into Ducky's family room. The boys were sacked out there on the couch, on the airbeds. Her gaze drifted over them - McGee, curled up on his side; Tony, happily sprawled out on his airbed; Gibbs, sleeping on the couch, his arms crossed but his face peaceful.

She moved to the kitchen, turning on a tiny light in the corner breakfast nook. She read over the forms Gibbs had given her that day. Next to her sat the envelope, already with her handwriting on it: 'Leroy Jethro Gibbs'.

She checked off all the forms that needed to be filled out, releasing Gibbs from his financial obligations to the team he'd built, releasing Gibbs from any further concern with the team, just like he had wanted.

Kate looked at the bottom line. Company financial representative.

She brought up the pen. 'Caitlin Todd', and then she refolded the papers and put them in the envelope, then left it on the dining room table. He'd see it in the morning.

**_TBC_**


	4. Chapter 4

**Stormchasers**  
by Sammie

Disclaimer in Part 1.

* * *

NEXT MORNING

"Hey, breakfast!" Ziva grinned as the women trooped down. A huge plate of scrambled eggs and toast and pancakes were already stacked on the table, and she could see her old boss in the kitchen, still frying away. Tony was now putting silverware on the table. "Never thought I'd see you setting a table."

"Funny. Funny. Gibbs had me clear the table."

"Adorable," Ziva joked. She looked at the pile of things on the little table in the corner. "Did you just shake the books and papers on the tablecloth to the floor?"

"Everybody's a comedian," Tony muttered. "No, I dumped them all into a pile and put them to the side."

Across the table, Abby and Viv exchanged looks as Jen slipped into the kitchen and gave their old boss a long, lingering kiss. Abby made a face. Viv chuckled.

"McGee," Tony began. "How much money did insurance give us for a new truck?"

"Not enough if we want to get a new one," McGee grumbled. "Ten grand."

"That's it?" Tony frowned, his mouthful of egg. "Old Faithful was worth more than that."

"Tony, Old Faithful was most likely worth a quarter of that when it crashed," Abby pointed out as she put jam on her toast. "We're just lucky we got it insured when we first got it, for more than we figured on getting."

"We'll go to Mike's," Kate replied, setting jam and butter onto the table. "He should give us a good deal."

"Mike reamed Fornell," Viv said doubtfully.

"Viv used to be a corporate sellout, too," Tony told Jen cheerfully. "Until she came over from the Dark Side."

Gibbs thumped him in the head as he set down a new, steaming plate of pancakes. "I'll go with you. I'll talk to my old boss; Franks should cut you a better deal."

There were a few happy - but hushed - cheers, and Tony grinned gratefully. "Thanks, boss!"

Gibbs nodded with a tiny grin, then looked up almost inadvertently but instinctively to look at Kate. Two seats down sat Jen, and neither woman looked particularly happy. Jen looked put out; Kate, puzzled.

He looked to Kate first. "Problem?"

"No, no," Kate said slowly. "I just...thought you would have wanted to go once you got what you came for. You've already spent twenty-four hours with us."

"Not a problem," Gibbs replied carefully.

"Then it's done!" Tony said with a big grin. "We're off truck shopping."

* * *

"Tony! We don't have the money for that truck!"

"But it's better than that one!"

"They both drive well - you said it yourself."

Mike Franks just stood on the side, with a smirk on his face.

- x - x - x - x - x -

"Looks like you'll get a replacement today," Gibbs began slowly.

Kate nodded. "Mike was willing to shave off a few thousand from the price," she began. "Thank you."

There was a long pause, and then Kate said quietly, "You can go, if you like. I doubt that Jen wants to stay around here much longer, with us. She seems to hate the storm chasing."

"She was a good chaser, Kate," Gibbs said defensively.

"I didn't say she wasn't," Kate replied mildly. "I said she seems to hate it now."

He couldn't argue with that. Jen was a good chaser, that one season she had chased, but she hadn't liked it much - then or now.

"And you got what you came for."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

She looked at him incredulously. "The papers, Gibbs," she said, and he tried to hide his wince at the businesslike use of his last name. "The papers."

"I didn't get any papers."

"I left them signed and sealed on the dining table last night. There was no way you could have missed them."

"Tony must have cleared them from the table," Gibbs muttered.

"Well, I doubt Ducky would get rid of them. So you'll have them."

"And then I can go," he said shortly, looking at her. She didn't respond but focused her attention on Tony and McGee. "Kate, I didn't leave the team because I disliked them," Gibbs said sharply. "I left because it was time to go. I'm not getting any younger."

"No one is," she pointed out drolly.

"Fifteen years and we're barely closer to better storm predictions than we were then, or even after the Hardings got Dorothy in the air. It's pointless. Nothing changed," he said sharply.

She gave him a long, quiet look. "But running away won't change it, either."

He watched as she stepped away from him, towards Mike to close out the deal.

- x - x - x - x - x -

"We got one!" Abby shouted. "Twenty miles south of us! NSSL says it's huge!"

"Let's go, let's go!" Tony shouted. "Just get the moorings out of Ziva's van, put TOTO on there." Ziva and McGee were racing towards the van as Viv threw open its doors, yanking out the battered steel scaffold. The other two pulled out the TOTO in the van and started to wheel it over to the new truck. "We'll deal with it on the way there!"

Kate hurriedly skimmed the rest of the insurance agreement, signing with a flourish and handing it back to the insurance agent. "All done."

"Please don't ruin this one," he begged.

"Of course we're going to take care of our new truck," Kate shouted over to him in pretended affront as she ran towards the truck. "We always do!"

Abby reached out, hooking the portable radio onto Tony's belt in one swift downward motion, then tossed the headphones at him before dashing for the RV.

"Let's go, let's go!" Kate shouted, jumping into the truck bed and yanking up the tailgate behind her, climbing over TOTO to get to the truck moorings.

"You all right, Kate?" Tony called, opening the window in the truck bed leading to the back.

"Just don't slam on the brakes and don't take turns too fast," she called back. There was a loud, metallic clang as she shoved the stand forward, buttressing the moorings tight up against the back of the cab. She grabbed the rubber mallet, swinging it down hard onto the metal bar on the left, snapping it into place before turning her attention to the one of the right.

"We need to take the 167 to get on the 35," Viv was already calling over the radio.

- x - x - x - x - x -

Jen hurried over to Gibbs, who was still watching the cars disappear down the road. "Aren't you going to follow?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Kate signed the papers," he said, with less enthusiasm than he ought. "We just have to pick them up from Ducky's."

"But what about that?" Jen asked, pointing at TOTO 1 and 3 sitting on the back of Gibbs' truck.

His eyes widened. "Get in the truck!"

- x - x - x - x - x -

Abby typed away as fast as she could on the laptop, watching the computer screens in front of her as she worked. The red and green dots of the Doppler swirled slowly on the monitor, and ahead of her, on the other screen, it signaled a touchdown. "Touchdown!" she shouted. "We've got a touchdown! Tornado is on the ground!"

"Where?"

"Groundspeed 30 miles an hour," Abby continued. "It should be right in front of us! Look southeast!"

"On 183," Viv radioed.

- x - x - x - x - x -

Kate stood up in the truck bed, grabbing the ledge of the truck cab window for balance. "Where is it?" she called, banging on the top of the truck cab. "Do you see this?"

"I do NOT see this," Tony replied, leaning over the wheel, looking up at the sky through the windshield. "Abby said southeast."

"It's not southeast," Kate murmured, her eyes turning dark with concern.

Tony frowned as Abby's voice came over the line again, excited: "She's gaining strength! It's going to be a whopper!"

"Abby, you have to help us out," he called frantically into the mic. "We don't have a visual. We're doing this blind, here."

"It'll be coming right on this road, past that treeline," Viv replied.

"You gonna go for it, boss?" McGee called.

Tony reached up, banging on the ceiling of the cab to get Kate's attention. She crouched down to his level. "You can get TOTO ready?"

"TOTO doesn't require these moorings to be in place!" Kate replied. "Ready when you are."

- x - x - x - x - x -

"Glad you joined us!" McGee shouted as Gibbs' truck pulled up to where the RV and the SUV were parked and prepared for TOTO's deployment. Ziva waved briefly before returning to setting up the telephoto lens on the camera. "Wanted to come along?"

Gibbs pointed at TOTO 1 and 3 in the back of his truck. "Yesterday you moved TOTO 1 and 3 onto my truck so you could all get in the RV to go to Ducky's," he reminded.

"Here, let us get it," Ziva offered, waving Viv over.

"No, you can do it after you finish this," Gibbs replied. He came up to where Jen still sat in the truck, watching the sky. "We can wait a bit."

The team nodded, going back to their preparations.

"Jethro," Jen said quietly, watching the sky with a frown. "I don't see this thing."

- x - x - x - x - x -

Kate swore as she quickly dropped her tools through the window into the truck cab. She turned her attention to TOTO, pulling it closer to her and locking it half-way into its truck stand so she could work on it.

"We got hail!" Tony shouted, as Kate yanked up the hood of her raincoat over her head. "And debris!" he shouted. "We got debris!"

"WHOA!" Kate shouted as a motor scooter flew over her head. She ducked, looking up just in time to see it crash a few hundred feet behind them, making a small fireball.

"We're almost there!" Tony called.

Kate opened up the cover to the instrument panel, quickly tossing each switch on. She slammed the cover shut, then quickly looked over the machine to ensure it was ready.

"OK, this is good enough!" Tony shouted, slamming on the brakes. Kate slammed against the moorings, then quickly got up, not seeing the blood mixed with the rainwater on the steel.

"No! No! Have to get closer!" Kate shouted, banging on the window. "Look at how far away it is!" Suddenly a gigantic tree branch fell straight on top of the cab, just a few inches from her. "OK, never mind!" As she pushed it off the car, she looked up to see where it had torn off - the branches were twisted into the spokes of the wheels of a bicycle.

Kate kicked down the tailgate and jumped off the truck bed. She yanked at TOTO, pulling it towards the tailgate as Tony appeared at her side. With a jerk, TOTO came off the truck bed and onto the road.

Suddenly the strong wind tore off one of the power lines, sending sparks off as the wire fell to the ground. Soon a power pole began to teeter.

"We got to get out of here!" Tony shouted, starting to push Kate ahead of him, back to the truck.

Suddenly the roaring wind came by, sweeping the bicycle and branch of the ground where Kate had pushed them and sending it hurtling towards the truck along with several large branches.

"Duck!" Tony screamed. There was only the sound of metal striking metal, a sharp thud, and then the wind picked up the branch and bike again; and then a metallic crash and thud - and then the sickening sound of tiny metallic-plastic balls bouncing on the road.

"NO!" Kate screamed, jumping up as Tony did.

TOTO was lying on its side on the road, the balls rolling about on the highway. The branches and had tangled with the top of the machine, and the added weight of the bicycle as it continued its rapid descent yanked the machine down with it, despite the weights in the bottom.

Kate took off, scooping up as many sensors as she could. "Help me, Tony! Get that branch off of TOTO!"

"Kate! The pack's wasted!" Tony shouted. "C'mon!"

- x - x - x - x - x -

"Uh-oh," Abby muttered, and began to type frantically. "Uh-oh!"

"Abby, I do not want to hear another uh-oh!" Gibbs said sharply. "What's going on?"

"No no no!" she shouted, typing frantically. "The storm's gone!"

"The cone is silent," McGee said softly, staring up at the clearing sky.

"Tony," Abby radioed, obviously disappointed. "Tony, I'm sorry - it's over. It was on the ground, it was going good, and then - now - it's just - disappeared."

Ziva swore in Hebrew, throwing a map in frustration at the van. Viv began to gather her things, and Jen started heading back to Gibbs' truck.

He stood alone, watching the sky, and suddenly turned and sprinted towards the RV, snatching up the microphone to the radio out of Abby's hands. "Tony!" he shouted. "Tony, listen to me. The tornado's not through yet. It's backbuilding!"

"We're tracking it, we're tracking it," McGee assured him as Abby, who began to type frantically, trying to bring up more Doppler images.

"Nothing's coming up," Abby said in frantic disappointment.

"Abby! They're in there blind!"

"It's not giving me readings!" Abby muttered.

Gibbs squeezed the talk button on the microphone. "Tony, listen to me. The data's incomplete. It's a jumper, and we can't track it - you need to get out of there. Get out of there, now!"

- x - x - x - x - x -

"Tony!" Kate shouted, spreading her jacket on the ground, pushing sensors frantically onto it. "Tony, help me!"

"Kate, we gotta get out of here!" Tony shouted, turning towards the truck, accidentally banging his knee straight into TOTO. He hissed out a brief curse. "Kate, c'mon!"

"Help me!" Kate screamed over the rain and the wind. "Help me!"

"Forget the sensors! The pack's wasted!" Tony repeated. "We gotta go! Gibbs said it'll jump - it's going to drop on us!"

"Abby'll see it!"

"Abby's data's incomplete, they can't track it!" Tony grabbed at her arm. "Kate, c'mon!"

"No! Tony, we only have two more machines!" Kate shouted.

- x - x - x - x - x -

Gibbs threw the microphone against the dashboard in a fit of anger, the mic bouncing all over the place. "D-mn!" he shouted, then grabbed it again. "Tony, listen to me! Get Kate out of there!"

"I don't think Tony is the one unwilling to leave," Ziva murmured.

"D-mm-t, Tony, get Kate out of there!"

- x - x - x - x - x -

Tony grabbed her bodily, shoving her into the truck before jumping in. She whipped around, slapping at the dashboard frantically. "No! Go back! Go back!"

"KATE! Stop!" Tony threw the car in reverse as the twister appeared briefly a half a mile in front.

"It's not too late!"

He stopped the car to turn it around, and she opened the door and jumped out. "D-mn!" he hissed.

"Help me!" Kate half-screamed, half-begged, running in the rain to gather up the other sensors, scooping and kicking sensors onto the jacket, lying on the ground. "Help!"

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!"

"WE CAN STILL GET HER TO FLY!"

"Kate!" Tony shouted, roughly grabbing her arm. "You've gone crazy!"

"You've never seen what that storm do!" Kate screamed.

"I just DID!" he shouted, starting to reach for her arm to drag her back to the car.

She shoved him away from her, dropping back on her hands and knees to gather the tiny sensors. "You've never - never mind!"

"Kate, stop this!" Tony shouted.

"You don't understand!" Kate cried, grabbing at the bike roughly and tearing it away from the machine. "You don't understand."

"Kate, stop this! I'm sorry your fiance died, but killing yourself isn't going to change that!" Tony ran a frustrated hand through his wet hair, turning away. "What do I tell Gibbs if I don't return with you?"

- x - x - x - x - x -

The rain fell on the team, drenching them through as they listened to Tony and Kate's voices, booming through the radio, loud and clear. They sat silently, everyone looking awkwardly at the ground throughout the yelled conversation.

Jen stood quietly to the side, water streaming down her hair and her face; Gibbs sat on the hood of the RV, his elbows on his knees, his head bowed over.

* * *

"What happened?" Ducky exclaimed, running into the emergency room. "I came as soon as Abby called me. What happened?"

Ziva turned a dark look at Abby, who shrugged sheepishly. "Nothing, Ducky. We are quite all right."

"That's why you are in the emergency room?" Ducky questioned.

"Kate got a couple gashes in her left arm," Abby replied. "Doctor says they're shallow, though."

"Tony screwed up his knee. He accidentally crashed into TOTO. Didn't really notice it until Abby saw him limping around here."

Ducky nodded, satisfied. "Did you succeed?"

The team looked at him dejectedly and shook their heads. "We lost a TOTO, too," Ziva murmured.

Ducky reached over, gently patting her cheek in consolation. "Where are they?"

"They're both in recovery now."

"And Jethro?"

"Over there," Ziva replied, motioning to where their boss sat by the window, alone, his dark expression more than likely scaring off anybody else.

- x - x - x - x - x -

"Jethro."

Gibbs looked up to see his old friend standing there, a minute before he dropped into the chair next to him. "They got banged up a little," he replied.

"Yes, Abby and Ziva informed me of it." Ducky held out an envelope with Gibbs' name on it, in Kate's careful print. "You left this this morning."

Gibbs took it half-heartedly.

"Jethro," Ducky said gently. "You cannot always protect your team. These things happen. They happened when you were on the team. They happened to you."

"Not that, Ducky." Gibbs ran a hand through his hair. "Ducky, you should have heard her." He shook his head. "She was almost crazed."

Ducky frowned. "Kate?"

Gibbs looked up sharply. "You know." He paused. "How long has she been like this?"

"So devoted to her work?" Ducky replied quietly. "Her entire career, Jethro."

"Ducky!" Gibbs muttered in exasperation. "I'm talking about this...almost obsessive behavior."

"I noticed no great difference."

"Even I noticed it. Sinking that much of her personal money into TOTO, then what she did out there today. It was staring me right in the face. When did this change?"

"Or perhaps this time you finally saw it?" Ducky said gently. "Jethro. You always went your own way. Quite often she was going the same way you were. It would hardly be likely you would notice anything." He paused. "Not until you stepped away from her."

Gibbs frowned, watching the elderly doctor. "But she was always so...normal."

Ducky chuckled. "She was balanced. No emotional baggage." As Gibbs looked away, he knew he'd hit the target. He laughed quietly. "That's what we want, isn't it? We want our women to be emotionally stable, to anchor us. We don't want them to be quirky and eccentric; we don't want them to be intense workaholics."

He smiled. "We're two old chauvinists, you and I," he said with a little mirth and a little sadness. "We think that, since Kate can still joke with her teammates, that she eats normally, that she watches out for her teammates' health, that she has every facade of normalcy - that she is." He shrugged. "That may simply mean she hides it better."

"Why didn't she ever tell me?" Gibbs said softly.

"I believe she did tell you about Paul," Ducky pointed out.

"She told me about Paul, but." Gibbs stopped short. "It was just - so detached."

"What was she to say, Jethro? You lost your wife and your daughter. Did you think Kate was the sort to beg you to set aside your feelings because she lost her fiance?"

"It doesn't make a difference," Gibbs replied sharply, "how many people died."

"No, it doesn't," Ducky agreed. "But do you think Kate sees it that way?" He shrugged. "She's spent her entire career on this team watching over the rest of you - breaking up Tony and McGee's squabbles, making sure you eat some semblance of healthy food, running your finances."

The doctor sighed. "She looks normal because even if she wants to run away from it all, she doesn't. She stays in that job, and so people think she's over it."

Gibbs leaned forward, running a tired hand over his face. "The guys are angry with me, aren't they," he said quietly.

"Jethro, they're not angry. Disappointed and sad, perhaps." Ducky laughed sadly. "Kate could forgive you leaving her, but not leaving them, not leaving TOTO. They - I believe they can forgive you leaving them, but not leaving Kate."

The doctor gently patted his knee. "Jethro," he said gently as he got up to go. "I do not wish to dismiss your loss any more than I wish to dismiss hers. But perhaps you were as much her stability as she was yours."

- x - x - x - x - x -

"We finished setting up TOTO's moorings on the truck," McGee replied. "TOTO 1, ready to deploy."

"I hope she flies this time," Viv muttered. "We've got only two left, and then back to the weather balloons."

"We're back to big white balloons even if she does fly," Ziva pointed out. "We don't have enough TOTOs for every tornado."

"Are they out yet?"

"Right over there," Viv replied, looking over at the desk where Tony and Kate were signing out, Tony leaning on his crutches, Kate's arm wrapped in thick white bandages.

"We got one, we got one!" Abby suddenly blurted, yanking the phone away from her ear. "Two of the cells are merging - it's going to be a doozy!"

Tony, at the counter, turned instantly. The team looked at him uncertainly. "What are you waiting for?" he barked.

Ziva tossed the SUV keys to Viv. "I'll drive Kate," she called.

Viv nodded, shoving the keyring into her mouth as she helped Abby pack up the laptops. "Let's go!"

- x - x - x - x - x -

Gibbs looked up, watching as Kate's left arm hung still and unused at her side, and Tony limping out after his team. "Jen," he said, half-running over, pulling her out of the emergency room waiting room into the sunlight. "Jen, take these." He shoved the papers at her, then took out the car keys and handed them to her. "Take the truck, go home."

Jen nodded weakly, smiling. "I think it's best."

Gibbs nodded. "You'll be safer in Norman. I gotta help them - with Tony and Kate at less than a hundred percent. I'll be home tonight. I'll see you then."

She shook her head. "No, you won't," she said quietly. She smiled bravely at his puzzled expression. "Jethro, I don't know what induced you to give chasing. I don't know what made you run from this."

He stared at her, surprised. "Jen - "

"Quite frankly, I don't know you," she continued. "That person I met in Norman - that was not you. I thought perhaps you'd changed in six years, but I was wrong. You are still you - when you're out here. I don't know who you are when you're in the city."

"Jen, wait."

"Sooner or later, you would have realized that this - this new life is not what you wanted, not who you are," she said quietly. She waved at the team, now testing their satellites and Doppler again. "Jethro, I can't compete with this. I never could."

There was a thump that got their attention. Kate had jumped to the ground from the truck bed, McGee having reached up a hand to help her down. Gibbs' eyes lingered on her a moment longer than Jen's, and when he turned back, she was smiling sadly at him. "I don't know what you're running from here," she said softly. "But your answer isn't in Norman." She paused. "Or with me."

She gently squeezed his hand. "Jethro, I'm not even surprised it ended like this," she said. "What does that tell you?"

"Jen," he murmured. "I - I didn't mean - "

"I know." She gave him a brave smile. "Go on." She waved vaguely in Kate's direction. "She needs you, just as much as you do her."

- x - x - x - x - x -

Tony yanked himself up into the passenger's side, swinging his legs into the van. "Get both TOTOs onto that truck! You'll have to tie down the other one!"

"Ziva!" Kate shouted, grabbing the video and the photographic cameras. "Come on!"

"Ziva will drive the van," Gibbs said suddenly, plucking the keys to the new truck out of the Israeli's hands.

The entire team froze, looking between Tony and Gibbs, and then Kate and Gibbs. "Fine by me if it's fine by Kate," Tony said carefully, tossing the decision to his partner.

McGee gulped audibly as Kate unconsciously rubbed her hurt arm. "OK," she said, trotting off to the truck.

_TBC_


	5. Chapter 5

**Stormchasers**  
by Sammie

Disclaimer in Part 1.

* * *

"I need to wire you," Kate replied, unbuckling her seatbelt as she held up the portable radio and headset. Gibbs nodded, keeping his eyes on the road as her feather-light hands swept over him, clasping the radio onto his belt and then looping the headset over his head. "OK."

"Big whoop, Gibbs!" Abby's voice crackled with excitement.

Gibbs immediately straightened in his seat. "Whoop us, Abs."

"Four miles, to the southeast."

"We need to get on Oklahoma 412," Viv added.

"Wind speed, ground speed, c'mon, Abby!" Gibbs retorted impatiently.

"Wind speed about 200, ground speed - whoa, this a fast one - 50 miles an hour."

"F3," Kate muttered. "Borderline 4."

"Heya boss," Tony's voice came over the line. "Look who came to welcome you back. He's on the parallel road."

Gibbs looked over briefly to see Fornell's long line of black cars on the parallel road.

"This is the prize in the Cap'n Crunch," Tony intoned. "First one on site gets it."

"I see the funnel," Gibbs murmured. "It's on our side, but not for long."

"It's may jump the road," Kate replied. "Then it'll be between us."

Kate settled back, preparing for a quickening in the speed, but Gibbs continued along at the slow 50. She saw a dirt turn-off coming up. "Take it, take it!" she waved a hand at it.

Gibbs passed it by, still going at a slow 50. Kate stared at him incredulously, then her gaze snapped to Fornell's team on the other side, pulling ahead. "What are you doing?" she exclaimed. "Letting Fornell take over that scene? By the time we get there it'll be gone!"

"Do you want to drive?" Gibbs exclaimed.

"Yes! Even _I_ can drive faster than this!" Kate exclaimed. "Especially when we're chasing!"

"Just hold on," he shot back.

She stared at him for a moment, then shook her head, giving a short laugh. "You've lost your nerve," she taunted, hoping to get a rise out of him. "City life has turned you into a softie!" She looked at his speedometer, then covered her face with her hand.

Gibbs sighed, then grinned. "Tighten your seatbelt." He grabbed the shoulder strap of her seatbelt and yanking up, tightening it as he slammed down on the gas, spinning them straight into a field.

"What are you doing?" Kate exclaimed, her feet slamming down on the floor as he took a sharp turn into the tall grass. "The storm's back there! We're going behind it!"

"There it is," Gibbs murmured, pointing. "That sidewinder's going to turn."

"Are you sure?" she asked, staring at the sky.

"Oh yeah," Gibbs muttered, yanking the wheel around.

She nodded, watching the storm steadily, and sure enough, it turned. "Remind me to ask your gut what horse to bet on," Kate muttered. They neared the storm, and Gibbs made a sudden, 180-degree turn, sending her slamming into his side despite the seatbelt.

He accelerated as they went through the field, breaking down the grass as they closed the distance to the storm, when it suddenly turned, putting them right into their path, just as Gibbs had guessed. He popped onto the road on the other side of the field.

Next to him, Kate had unbuckled her seatbelt and was climbing into the backseat, opening up the cab window and climbing through. She carefully manuevered her way past the TOTO 3 locked into the truck stand and opened up the instrument panel on TOTO 1. She turned on the machine, then leaned over, banging on the cab window. "We're ready!"

He swung the car around in a circle so he was now facing the other direction. Kate was yanking free the straps as he jumped out of the truck, and she kicked down the tailgate.

"Right over here by the side of the road!" he shouted, pulling it off of the truck bed. Kate nodded, helping him lift it off, then pulling it on its wheels, rolling it over to the side. Once there, she kicked on the small brake, stopping the machine from rolling.

Gibbs was already in the car, starting up the engine again as Kate jumped in. The tornado was less than a few hundred yards away. Gibbs shook his head. "Never been this close," he muttered as he sped off.

"That's the point," Kate grinned. "Fast in, fast out." She turned on her video camera, then pulled herself out of the cab halfway, grimacing a little at the pain in her left arm. She held it up, pointing it towards the storm and TOTO.

Gibbs brought the truck to a careful stop much farther away, then turned himself to watch.

"Come on, come on," Kate murmured, watching silently through the camera lens.

"What is that?" Gibbs frowned suddenly, watching a silvery flash inside. He squinted.

"I don't know," Kate frowned, looking up. She zoomed in, but the flash was gone inside the twisting of the dark winds. "I got a bad feeling about this."

Gibbs' eyes swept the skyline, then settled back on the tornado. "Kate," he said quietly. "Get in the car. It's turning. It's coming straight for us!"

They sat, stock still for a moment, before scrambling back into the cab. Gibbs slammed his foot down on the gas, jumping forward as Kate turned again to get a steady look at the tornado, keeping the video camera rolling.

"There's that flash again," Kate spoke, keeping him updated. "It's a - it's a Hummer. It's a silver - no! No no no," she begged.

Gibbs looked up into the rearview mirror, just seconds before the twister dropped the Hummer right on top of TOTO. Everything exploded in a massive fireball.

A few seconds later, the twister dissipated, disappearing back into the clouds.

Gibbs slammed a fist against the wheel in frustration. Kate was still sitting in her seat, stunned silent.

"Kate," he spoke finally.

"Are you all right?" Viv called. "Gibbs? Kate?"

"Did you see that explosion?" came Abby and Tony's enthused shouting over the line. "Did you see that! It's was like a mini bomb!"

They sat in stony silence in the cab, and then Kate reached over for the radio mic. "Yeah," she said dully. "We saw it."

Gibbs gently squeezed her hand.

- x - x - x - x - x -

"Um...boss?" McGee approached Tony. "I don't know if you want to tell 'em...or..."

"What?"

"That sucker's still gaining strength," Abby said quietly. "It jumped back into the clouds, but NSSL thinks it's going to get up to 270 mph, soon as the two cells are fully merged."

Tony's head snapped up at that. "270," he murmured. "That's a F5."

- x - x - x - x - x -

"Boss? Kate?"

"Yeah, Tony," Gibbs replied, keeping his eyes on the road as they drove in silence.

"Uh." He paused. "That twister you just hit."

"Yeah?"

There was silence on the other end, and then Tony said quietly, "It jumped back up into the clouds - "

"We saw that."

"NSSL thinks it's just taking time to gain strength." There was a pause. "They're forecasting windspeed up to 270, though they're hoping the groundspeed may drop a few mph."

In one car up, Gibbs could see Kate's knuckles tighten on the handle above the car door. "It'll be a crazy updraft," she murmured.

Gibbs turned the truck so they were facing where the tornado had been. The clouds were swirling slowly, ominously.

"The funnel's starting down," Kate murmured as if it were an afterthought.

They rode in silence for a full minute, staring as the funnel started to come down.

Still several miles away, Gibbs squinted. He could see the blank funnel cloud, not weaving like many of the smaller storms they normally tracked. He'd never seen a wider radius.

"Um, Gibbs, Kate," came McGee's uncertain voice. "We, uh."

"Spit it out, McGee," Gibbs barked.

"Abby and I didn't design a weight for an F5," he said softly. "It may not be heavy enough to reach the core if the winds are that strong."

"But can it?" Kate asked sharply, leaning over to use the mic Gibbs still held.

"We didn't DESIGN it to," Abby countered.

"I want to know what it can do!" Gibbs exclaimed. "Not what it was designed to do!"

"We, uh," McGee stammered. "Yes, we think it can."

"That's enough for me," Gibbs called. "Good work. Set up for deployment, make sure you get good shots."

He paused, then put his foot to the gas, and they sped off, alone.

"That radius is huge," Kate murmured, her eyes peeled to the tornado they were coming up on. "I haven't seen that but once."

"Yeah," Gibbs muttered. "Me, too."

Debris began to pelt the car. Torn up cell phone towers became steel missiles and wooden planks were blown around them like toothpicks.

"LEFT!" Kate screamed suddenly as a wheat thresher dropped straight in front of them.

Gibbs yanked the wheel to the left, narrowly missing the thresher.

"RIGHT!"

The hanging hook from a tow truck struck the top of their cab as Gibbs swerved to the right, narrowly missing the airborne truck.

"LEFT!" she yelled as a tractor came down on their other side. He pulled the wheel over as Kate grabbed the mic and shouted into the radio, "Debris! We got debris!"

"'Debris'!" Gibbs exclaimed at her understatement.

"Mooooooo."

Kate swallowed, slowly setting the microphone back into its hook as she and Gibbs looked up. They followed its progress as a clearly upset Holstein blew across the road in front of them. Kate's hand stilled over the forgotten video camera as she watched, her mouth slightly open. "Cow," she said, unnecessarily.

Gibbs veered off a little to the left, to avoid a large I-beam sitting on the road. A few seconds later, the black and white blob flew by again. "'Nother cow."

"Actually," Gibbs murmured. "I think that was the same one."

Suddenly a gigantic tanker crashed in front of them, crashing open, and suddenly everything went white. "What!" Kate shouted. "What is that!"

"I don't know!" Gibbs shouted as the steering wheel spun widely. He switched on the windshield wipers, batting anxiously back and forth. He grabbed the wheel, yanking it against the car's spinning, trying to get out of the hydroplaning. The car spun on the liquid. "Hang on!"

They finally broke free, skidding back onto what was marginally firm ground, and Kate looked back at the large, endless pool of white all over the highway. Kate frowned, then slowly rolled down the window and reached a finger out, picking up some of the white still on the car.

"What is it?" Gibbs frowned, carefully maneuvering around a gigantic wheel rolling towards them.

"No idea." Kate sniffed it, then started to put her finger in her mouth.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Gibbs asked, a little too late. "Well?"

"When I said I wanted to go to a spa and get a milk bath," Kate muttered, "this is NOT what I meant."

"Well," Gibbs muttered, keeping his eyes peeled on the road. "Just be glad DiNozzo isn't here to make milk and cow jokes." She grinned. "Just a thought. I think we should get off this road."

"Good idea," Kate muttered, taking another brief look at the debris behind her.

He turned off at a side road. "We still have to find a way to get in front of it," he said. Getting no comment, he looked over at her. She was entirely focused on something ahead of them. "Kate?"

She yanked out the binoculars from the glove compartment.

"Kate?"

"That's asphalt on the grass over there," Kate said quietly, pointing ahead. "Torn up from a road."

Gibbs squinted. He couldn't see much that far ahead. "What did you say? Asphalt?"

"It's asphalt...like the tornado just re-paved the grass," Kate murmured, ominously. "It gets worse." She pointed at the school ahead. "That's Sooner Elementary."

"Yeah?"

"Jethro," Kate replied. "Jethro, Sooner wasn't built from brick." She looked over at him, watching his expression suddenly turn grim. "Sooner was built all out of reinforced concrete," she said quietly. "The roof's entirely gone, and the walls are really beat up."

They stared at each other for a moment, realization dawning. "F5," Gibbs murmured.

"That was a lot of concrete and asphalt to rip away," Kate muttered. "I mean, where would it go if the wind just ripped it out of - "

"KATE!" he screamed as a slab of steel came flying towards the passenger's side, slamming in straight the windshield like a missile. He slammed on the breaks as the windshield cracked across but did not shatter. "Kate!"

The car screeched to a halt. No Kate in the passenger's side. He took a deep breath. It would have impaled her into the seat.

The door to the passenger's side was hanging open, and he ran around, to find Kate crawling up from the side of the road. She'd seen the triangular slab a second before he had, jumping out of the car just in time. He grabbed her, and she limped alongside of him in a run back towards the car.

She slid into the middle seat, between the huge slab of steel that had narrowly missed her, and the driver's seat. Gibbs squeezed in after her. "Thank God the windshield didn't crack," she muttered, and he started up the car again with grim determination.

"We're dropping TOTO and getting out of here," Gibbs muttered.

"Yeah, good idea."

He scrunched against the car door as she climbed deftly over into the backseat and unlocked the window. She snapped open the instrument panel and turned on the machine. "She's up!"

She reached around, feeling for the strap. "Ow!" she hissed, cutting her hand on the steel slab, then frowned. "Uh-oh," she muttered, tugging on the release strap.

The slab had pierced the strap straight through, pinning it into the truck bed. There was no way to release TOTO without pulling on the strap to release the locks.

"She up?" Gibbs shouted back at her.

"I've got an open blade!" Kate called, using one hand to flick open a blade in her Swiss Army knife. She sawed frantically at the release cord. It was tough, woven natural hemp and not cutting well. She dropped into her seat, looking around frantically.

The cigarette lighter, in the truck. She leaned on her stomach over the side, yanking it out, and grabbed her water. She soaked the rope through a foot from where it was caught, then clicked the lighter on, protecting the flame with her hand, and applied it to the cord.

"What are you doing?" Gibbs shouted, smelling the smoke.

"Just drive," she shouted back.

The fire having eaten through that area of cord, Kate doused the small flame and got a grip on the shortened release cord.

She jerked on the release strap, and TOTO clicked free of its truck moorings. She slid out into the cab window and over to the tailgate, sitting down hard on the truck bed. She grabbed a hold of a bar on the moorings and kicked down the tailgate. "We can deploy whenever you're ready!"

Gibbs started pulling up, slowing down. He'd barely come to a stop when TOTO disappeared from his rearview mirror, and Kate suddenly reappeared on the truck bed. "Go! Go!" she shouted. "She's on the ground. Get us somewhere safer!"

A few minutes later, she was crawling back into the truck cab, leaning over the seat. "Camera," she called.

Gibbs reached over, grabbing the video camera in one fell swoop and handing it back to her. She was leaning out the back of the cab, filming the twister they'd just passed. TOTO sat placidly in the middle of the road, waiting. Gibbs stopped the car.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon," he murmured to himself, and the twister slowly began to make its way over to the machine.

"Stay, stay, stay," Kate whispered.

"It's too light!" Gibbs shouted. "It'll get tossed before it makes it to the core!"

"No it's not!" Kate replied.

TOTO began to skitter across the street, pulled by the updraft and the inbound winds.

"There it goes!" she shouted, watching as the twister sucked up the instrument. "There it goes!" she cheered, the both of them laughing in delight.

"Abby! McGee!" Gibbs shouted into the radio mouthpiece. "Can you see this!"

- x - x - x - x - x -

"WE GOT READINGS!" Abby shouted.

"She's flying!" Tony shouted, jabbing his finger at the twister in unrestrained delight. "She's flying!"

"She made it to the core!" Viv shouted, grabbing McGee into a gigantic bear hug.

"What did I tell you!" McGee shouted, laughing as the five jumped up and down, shouting in delight. "Look at those numbers!"

"Look at that F5," Ziva murmured in awe. "It's beautiful!"

Abby suddenly frowned, watching the numbers, then quickly looked up. "Uh-oh."

"No more uh-ohs!" Tony shouted, Gibbs-like. "Abby, just say it!"

"It's turning. It's turning west!"

- x - x - x - x - x -

"Get out of there!" Tony's distinctive shout came rattling over the radio. "Get out of there! It's turning west."

"Kate, get back in the cab!" Gibbs shouted, pulling himself into the cab and jerking the car back into drive. Kate squirreled back inside, slamming the window shut.

She leaned over the front seat, grabbing the mic as Gibbs slammed his foot down on the gas. "What's the groundspeed on - JETHRO!" she shouted, looking up into the rearview mirror as a huge harvester suddenly crashed down, onto the back half of the truck bed.

Gibbs slammed on the brakes as the car jerked to a sudden halt, the front of the truck tilting up and backwards, taking them up a few feet into the air. He gunned the gas, the squeal of the nearly crushed back tires loud and high.

"Get us out of here!" Kate exclaimed in a half-panic.

"I'm trying!" Gibbs shouted.

"Listen to me!" Tony shouted. "You got to get out of there!"

"WE'RE TRYING!"

Gibbs tried jerking the wheel to the left and gunning the engine again, and the harvester budged slightly.

"It's coming!" Kate shouted.

Gibbs threw open the driver's side door. "C'mon!" he shouted as he started to climb out. "C'mon! We gotta get out of this heading!"

He jumped to the ground, then reached up for her, catching her and setting her down on the ground. "Let's go!" he shouted, starting to pull her in a path perpendicular to the oncoming twister.

Kate ran alongside of him, her ponytail whipping her face. "Jethro - "

"Come on!" he shouted, yanking at her hand. "Come on!"

He pulled her straight into the cornfield, keeping one arm up to break down the stalks in front of them. "Couldn't be a wheat field instead," he muttered.

They suddenly upon a clearing, where a house stood. Gibbs scanned the front yard as he ran; there was no evidence of a storm cellar. He grabbed her hand, pulling her up the stairs. He flung open the screen door and gave one swift kick to the door, and they ran straight through the house.

The TV was still on, although there was only static; a meal was half-eaten and abandoned on the dining room table, baby food spattered on a high chair.

They burst out of the back. "I don't get it!" Kate shouted as they stood still for a second, scanning the yard. "Who in Oklahoma doesn't have a storm cellar!"

"C'mon!" Gibbs started running for the barn. They were out of the direction of the twister, but with a mile-wide radius, there wasn't much hope that they wouldn't still be sucked in.

They raced across the field, trying to keep ahead of the storm. "DUCK!" he shouted, shoving her towards the ground. A few hundred feet away, a harvester crashed against a fence, and then their new truck swept straight over them, heading into the funnel.

"Two trucks in two days!" Kate exclaimed. "Insurance isn't going to be happy!"

Gibbs scrambled up, grabbing her hand as they continued to run. They reached the barn, and he grabbed a hold of the handle on the door. Kate's fingers slipped, and she started to be sucked backwards. He grabbed her and yanked her forward, and they pulled open the door and hurried inside. She jiggled the lock shut, and they turned to look around the barn.

Gibbs took one look at the two horses there, scratching and neighing. He threw open the big door on the other side, then unlocked the two stalls. The animals bolted out of the stalls, straight for the open door. "Kate, c'mon! There's nothing here!" He turned only to turn around and find Kate on the floor, frantically sweeping away straw from the ground. "Kate, we gotta go!"

"There's a hollow something below the floor!" she shouted. "Help me."

He scrambled over, brushing away the hay, and then his hand hit a metal handle. They spread away the hay. A trapdoor.

The hinges had rusted shut.

Gibbs jumped up, running for the ax hanging on the side of the door. With one swift blow, he broke the hinges, and they pulled away the top of the door. "It looks like an old tornado tunnel," he called. "Do you still have the lighter?"

Kate grabbed it out of her pocket and handed it to him. He lit it, lighting some hay with it, and looked down the ladder. "C'mon!" He stomped out his makeshift torch, then started down the ladder.

Once at the bottom, they looked around; it was musty, unused. Gibbs held up the flame from the lighter. "There's a lamp." Kate retrieved it, holding it open as he carefully lit the old lamp, praying silently it would light.

It did.

Kate held up the light, looking around the room as Gibbs scrambled back up, jerking the door as far shut as he could, and bolting it. "We have to get farther in," he shouted over the roaring of the wind above them. "That door's not going to hold!"

"We can't!" Kate swung the lamp so he could see. "The tunnel part collapsed, leaving only that little hollow here."

"They most likely abandoned it when they built a new storm cellar," Gibbs muttered, then swore softly. The wind was picking up, getting louder and louder as the storm gained on them. He pulled her close to him, pressing against the far wall, when he felt cold steel.

He dug quickly at it - water pipes. "Get your arms around the piping!" he shouted, pulling at the dirt, digging behind it. "C'mon!"

Kate scooted over to the far wall, slipping her arms around the piping and hugging it, pressing herself against the dirt wall. He soon had his arms around her, looped through that same little hollow he'd just dug in the dirt wall, squeezing her against him and the wall.

It was on them less than a minute later, and they could hear the door jiggling, and then suddenly it ripped away. He pulled himself tigher over Kate, and then the loud rumbling began.

He could see the yawning blackness above them, directly above the opening to the abandoned tornado tunnel. He started to tuck in, but he could feel Kate's face against his, rather than the top of her head. She was looking up, struck in wonder by the storm.

For a second, he felt a slight letup of the wind, a little sunlight in.

The eye.

Tiny though it was, he looked up, and he could feel Kate under him, shifting to do the same. They looked straight up into the storm, seeing beams, cars, furniture twisted up in the funnel. They stared together up into the storm, both horrified and awed.

"DUCK!" he shouted, pushing her down against the piping as a car suddenly slammed into the opening of the tunnel. It hung above them for a full minute, the metal groaning and grating against the floor above them, before there was a loud screeching and it got sucked away again.

The rumbling and groaning began to disappear, and Gibbs finally looked up when he felt the warmth of the sun back on his neck. It was clear - like nothing had ever happened. The sky was blue, and the sun was bright.

He felt Kate stirring, looking up at the sky. They were quiet for a moment, and then she murmured breathlessly, "Wow."

"Uh-huh," he grinned down, murmuring in her ear. "That's what they all tell me."

She twisted in his arms, turning to face him, a look of utter disbelief on her face. He just looked down at her, his eyes teasing her mirthfully, his mischievous smirk on his face.

"OK," she said uncertainly, deciding to let that one pass. "You can let go of me now."

He just looked at her contentedly, making no move to do so. He slid a hand under her, to her back. She kept watching him, slightly nervous and confused, as his eyes drifted slowly over her face. He then kissed her gently, lingering over her mouth.

"I don't see 'em," came a voice somewhere above them, and they broke apart, smiling. "McGee, are you sure they're here?"

"That's what the GPS says."

"Gibbs?" came a shout from above. "Kate?"

"We're down here!" Kate shouted as Gibbs released her.

Tony's face suddenly appeared at the small entrance to the tunnel. "Maybe we should leave you two down here," he grinned.

"DiNOZZO!"

Ziva turned to Viv. "You owe me twenty dollars. Gibbs didn't go back with Red." Viv made a face.

"We got such good pictures!" Abby yelled, hopping up and down as they climbed out, muddy and dirty. "And the data! Did TOTO fly!" she shouted, she and Tony (as well as he could), dancing up and down as the other cheered, hugging each other as the ran towards them.

"Did you see it?" McGee exclaimed. "It was incredible! It was so insane!"

"I think we've seen more than we want to see for a long time," Kate smiled, as Gibbs surreptitiously squeezed her hand.

* * *

Twenty miles away, the insurance agents at Carl Bingham's Insurance crawled out from the basement to survey the damage.

One of the insurance agents noticed a familiar looking truck sitting upside down in the parking lot, a huge metal slab through the passenger's seat, though no blood - so no casualties. He frowned. It was very familiar looking.

The windshield was cracked and would have to be replaced; the doors were torn off, and the tires were shredded. The chassis was busted. It looked almost entire totalled, albeit new.

He noticed a familiar looking light blue backpack in the front seat, and pulled it out before looking at the address tag on the inside.

'Caitlin Todd'.

Inside, a puzzled Carl Bingham looked out to see one of his agents hopping up and down, clutching a light blue backpack and screaming in frustration.

**THE END**

What's a tornado movie without a flying cow? ;-) Thanks for sticking it out to the end.


End file.
